Academia, though not immediately associated with preserving humanity in war, has been instrumental in advancing international humanitarian law (IHL). Since the 1864 Geneva Convention, scholars have supported the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) by promoting IHL, researching it, and helping the law develop. In a world facing 130 armed conflicts, rising polarization and dehumanization, and a paradoxical mix of interest in and disillusionment with IHL, academia’s role is more vital than ever. Despite its contributions, however, limited scholarship exists on how academia has supported the ICRC in preserving humanity in war by contributing to IHL. How has academia promoted this body of law? How has research strengthened IHL as the cornerstone legal framework that it is today? What role have academics played in its normative development? This article explores these questions, examining academia’s endeavours to promote IHL through education, advocacy and public engagement; its research efforts to consolidate IHL, clarifying it and supporting its implementation; and its contributions to IHL’s development, from involvement in treaty-making to proposing new norms. The piece also calls for reforms in IHL education to enhance its impact, advocates for multidisciplinary and ethical research focused on compliance and other pressing issues, and urges greater inclusion of academia in structures and processes aimed at developing the law. Finally, the article concludes by issuing a call to action for States, universities and academics, and outlining pathways to collectively strengthen IHL and uphold humanity in war.

The first ever field mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) took place in Montenegro in the winter of 1875–76. Although the expedition was little documented by what was then a new organization, a rediscovered trove of private archives has shed light on how it was carried out. Three delegates were sent to Montenegro with the aim of supporting the creation of a new relief society, aiding wounded soldiers and spreading awareness of the original Geneva Convention of 1864. Although the delegates were forced to adjust their ambitions, the Montenegro mission marked an important milestone in the burgeoning International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and sparked debate over the recognition of new National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies by their sister Societies. This article outlines the ICRC’s first experience in the field and examines the mission’s legacy.

The continued applicability of international human rights law in situations of armed conflict entails that the right to mental health also applies. It is therefore crucial to examine how human rights supervisory mechanisms engage with this right in such contexts. Building on this premise, the present paper investigates how United Nations treaty bodies address mental health in conflict and post-conflict settings in their Concluding Observations. The study is based on a textual analysis of these documents conducted through the Universal Human Rights Index database. The findings reveal that most recommendations contained in the Concluding Observations call for particular attention to the mental health of children, especially child combatants, and of women, particularly those who are victims of sexual and gender-based violence. In terms of action required, they emphasize the need to ensure the availability and accessibility of mental health and psychosocial support services to persons affected by conflict.

This article examines the relationship between acts harmful to the enemy (AHTTE) – the first criterion for the loss of special protection for medical units and transports under international humanitarian law – and the requirements for classification as a military objective, which governs the loss of general protection for civilian objects. The analysis begins by clarifying the articulation between special and general protection, then outlines the legal consequences of losing special protection alone. The definition of AHTTE is examined, with particular attention to hospital shielding, and it is then assessed whether such acts always meet the cumulative conditions of Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol I for becoming military objectives: effective contribution to military action and definite military advantage. The article argues that AHTTE do not always meet these conditions, and that certain acts contribute too indirectly or speculatively to justify targeting. The conclusion emphasizes that this analysis does not preclude the application of other rules governing the conduct of hostilities.

Although they are critical for military units’ compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL), junior leaders are often overlooked in the development of ethical and moral decision-making when it comes to education and training. To foster the internalization of IHL principles in this vital cohort, those principles must be better melded with military ethics. Through examination of different military efforts to create ethical warriors, important points from behavioural ethics, the use of warrior ethoses, instances of competing positive values, and ideas for effective and affordable curricula, the present article suggests a path forward for accomplishing this.

Images can help us to better understand how the laws of war and international humanitarian law have developed. As images transmit several messages simultaneously, they can reveal contextual, ideological, political and emotional dimensions that legal texts may not fully capture. This article aims to be an exercise seeking to demonstrate how a painting can serve not only as a historical source but also as a trigger for curiosity, prompting deeper exploration into the past and into the history of the laws of war. The painting in question, an 1881 piece by the Mexican artist Francisco de Paula Mendoza entitled The Pardon of the Belgians or The Exchange of Belgian Prisoners, will transport us to a mid-nineteenth-century exchange of prisoners of war (PoWs) and will remind us of the long-forgotten chapter of the Belgian volunteer force in what is known as the French Intervention in Mexico (1862–67). Drawing on primary and secondary sources, the article will offer new perspectives on the status of PoWs, the practice of the exchange of PoWs, and the doctrinal underpinnings of these ideas, and will reveal the entanglements between the laws of war, the principle of equal sovereignty, self-determination, non-intervention and republicanism in nineteenth-century Latin America. It will also reveal the interest of Latin American republics like Mexico in formalizing and standardizing the practice of the laws of war.

The prohibition on the use of expanding bullets was one of the first prohibitions to arise in contemporary international humanitarian law. This prohibition is not a mere historical curiosity and retains considerable importance due to the breadth of legal instruments that it gave birth to. The spirit that drove the negotiations of the 1899 First Hague Peace Conference – growing concern about the horrors created by new military technologies and their increased lethality – has continued to inspire those who wish to advance the agenda of humanitarian arms control and disarmament today. This article contributes to the literature examining weapons prohibitions by engaging with the historical diplomatic and medical literature and debates that influenced the prohibition of expanding bullets in armed conflicts. It examines the outcry against the use of these bullets, contrasts it with the interests of the States that chose to use or not use them, and traces their influence on the 1899 Hague Conference and contemporary legal instruments. In doing so, the article highlights the dual influence of ethics and military interests in the prohibition of the use of expanding bullets in armed conflicts and argues that the creation of norms is more multifaceted than typically accounted for.

This article examines the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled decision support systems in targeting operations and their implications for proportionality assessments under international humanitarian law (IHL). Emphasizing the primacy of the duty of constant care and precautions in attack as obligations that must be exhausted before and during proportionality assessments, the article advocates for a fuller understanding of civilian harm. It traces the historical trajectory of “quantification logics” in targeting, from the Vietnam War to contemporary AI integration, and analyzes how such systems may reshape decision spaces, cognitive processes and accountability within the context of armed conflict. Specifically, the article argues that over-reliance on computational models risks displacing the contextual, qualitative judgement essential to lawful proportionality determinations, potentially normalizing civilian harm. It concludes with recommendations to preserve the space that human reasoning occupies as central to IHL compliance in targeting operations.

“Hacktivists”, “patriotic hackers” and “civilian hackers” are today conducting cyber operations in several armed conflicts. While some of these groups work closely with State armed forces to support their operations and harm the enemy militarily, reports suggest that too often, civilian hackers have targeted – and damaged or disrupted – various parts of civilian infrastructures, such as banks, companies, pharmacies, hospitals, railway networks and civilian government services. The growing involvement of civilian hackers in digitalizing armed conflicts raises a number of legal questions. First, we must ask what limits international humanitarian law (IHL) imposes on civilian hackers. Second, it must be assessed what “status” these hackers and hacker groups have under IHL, and in what circumstances civilian hackers risk directly participating in hostilities and therefore losing their protection against attack. Third, the question arises of when a State is legally responsible for the conduct of civilian hackers operating under its instruction, direction or control, and what responsibilities States have to ensure respect for IHL by civilian hackers operating from their territory.

Rangers are indispensable to the management and protection of fragile ecosystems, especially when these come under threat from armed conflict. Yet, in such circumstances, rangers themselves become highly vulnerable as their responsibilities – such as preventing the plunder of natural resources or disrupting the trafficking of endangered species – frequently bring them into confrontation with parties to the conflict. Despite the critical nature of their work, international humanitarian law (IHL) provides them with no special safeguards beyond the general protection afforded to civilians. While certain analogies with IHL’s protection for relief personnel or civil defence actors might be drawn to extend an additional layer of legal security, it remains unclear whether these could be applied in practice to rangers. It is therefore crucial to examine relevant international environmental norms and principles – particularly those protecting areas of exceptional ecological value – in order to assess whether they could offer a more robust protective framework during warfare, thereby reinforcing the protection of the vital environmental functions that rangers perform.

Water is essential to life, dignity and recovery in armed conflict. Increasingly targeted, manipulated or incidentally damaged, it has become both a casualty and a weapon of war, with impacts that are often undocumented or unattributed. While there are multiple protections for water under international humanitarian law (IHL), legal indeterminacies, operational constraints and weak implementation undermine their effectiveness. This article examines patterns, drivers and types of harm relating to water in armed conflict, including reverberating effects and cumulative impacts, alongside the relevant legal frameworks. It advocates a protective interpretation of IHL and proposes measures including the establishment of a collaborative inter-agency mechanism to link field realities with the law, strengthening civilian protection where survival is at stake.

With the global proliferation of armed conflicts, children are among the most vulnerable, facing serious violations of their human rights, most notably the right to education. Although both international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) provide protection, schools continue to be attacked, educational infrastructure is destroyed, and millions of children lose access to learning. Against this backdrop, the present article examines the protection of children’s right to education under IHRL and IHL, and argues for a shift in how these existing norms are interpreted to better reflect the centrality of education to human dignity. Drawing on the established link between the right to education and human dignity under IHRL, the article proposes a novel interpretive lens that reframes the denial of education during armed conflict as a direct assault on the human dignity of the child, rather than merely a legal violation. Through this lens, education shifts from an ancillary social right to a core humanitarian concern grounded in the child’s dignity. The article argues that this human dignity-based understanding of education found in IHRL should inform the interpretation of IHL, as integrating this perspective would strengthen the normative coherence of IHL and offer stronger protection for children’s right to education in armed conflict. Recognizing schools as vital spaces for learning, stability and development, this approach emphasizes that access to education underpins children’s holistic growth, the realization of their rights and the safeguarding of their human dignity.

Analogies appear to permeate the entire domain of international humanitarian law (IHL), but as an independent subject of inquiry, they remain largely overlooked within IHL scholarship. This article seeks to initiate a debate by examining the role(s) of legal analogies in the historical development of IHL from 1864 to 2001. It pursues two specific objectives. First, it undertakes an empirical investigation into the prevalence and significance of analogies in IHL. Drawing on the collected data, the article proposes a taxonomy of IHL analogies encompassing three categories: analogies preceding IHL norms, analogies embedded within IHL norms, and analogies following IHL norms. Second, building on the hypothesis that analogical reasoning plays a pivotal role in shaping the normative content and structural evolution of IHL, the article analyzes such reasoning from an axiological perspective, identifying the underlying values and benefits that it conveys within the field. In the context of IHL’s historical development, two traditional values emerge prominently: coherence and flexibility. On the one hand, analogies have enabled the discipline to evolve coherently, avoiding chaotic progressions; on the other, they have brought flexibility, allowing the law to adapt to changing realities on the ground. This two-pronged approach demonstrates that analogical reasoning in IHL is both pervasive and substantive: it has played a crucial role in the transformation of IHL over time.

Dr Paola Forgione describes some of the reflections undertaken by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the links between traditions, cultures, religions and international humanitarian law (IHL), which resulted in a colloquium held on 29 May 2024. The colloquium report is reproduced below.

Italy and the Italian Red Cross (ItRC) have recently developed a strong institutional partnership aimed at the promotion of international humanitarian law (IHL), both domestically and in international fora. This cooperation has been particularly evident in the last few years and culminated during the 34th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (International Conference) in 2024, when Italy and the ItRC worked side by side in the preparation of the event and actively followed up to turn commitments into concrete outcomes. Their close coordination also stands out in the participation and engagement of relevant administrations and national stakeholders in Italy’s National IHL Committee, re-established in 2021, whose role and functioning features prominently in this contribution as a concrete example of Italy and the ItRC’s renewed collaboration. Through a qualitative review of previous initiatives, including the adoption of the first IHL Voluntary Report, the cooperation on a new IHL military manual and the joint engagement in the last International Conference, this paper assesses how cooperation between States and National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies influences both IHL’s implementation and its elevation as a political priority, analyzing enabling factors, suggesting avenues for further improvements and potentially illustrating an example that could inform similar efforts in other national contexts.

As a nuanced and quite domain-specific subset of international humanitarian law (IHL), the law of naval warfare (LONW) occasionally differs from general IHL in terms of rule content, interpretation, and application. For example, the targeting regime in the LONW is primarily platform-based, while the concept of civilian direct participation in hostilities is significantly less relevant at sea. Similarly, the application of the common Article 2 threshold at sea does not always parallel its application in other battlespaces and domains. Such inconsistencies – when compared to IHL more generally – can appear to be archaic and obtuse, but fidelity to the historical provenance and differential interpretation and application of these specialist rules is both essential and, in the current geostrategic environment, worth recalling. Given this predisposition to difference, this article outlines five current risks attending the modern application and interpretation of the LONW: misinterpretation and misapplication of the LONW due to a failure to appreciate its often sui generis nature; the lure of application and interpretation by analogy from shore-based LOAC; the heavy reliance of the LONW on historical examples; the highly lex specialis nature of the LONW in relation to the non-fragmentation trends underpinning the modern international law interpretive endeavour; and the consequences often assumed to flow from the aged nature of the LONW’s main sources.