Since their publication in the 1950s and 1980s respectively, the Commentaries on the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 have become a major reference for the application and interpretation of those treaties. The International Committee of the Red Cross, together with a team of renowned experts, is currently updating these Commentaries in order to document developments and provide up-to-date interpretations of the treaty texts. This article provides an introduction to the updated Commentary on Geneva Convention IV (GC IV), published online in 2025. It describes the methodology behind the updated Commentaries before explaining the historical background of bringing civilian protection into the framework of the Geneva Conventions. It then discusses how the structure of GC IV impacts its application and explains GC IV’s personal, geographic and temporal scope of application. The article summarizes key substantive protections provided in the Convention for civilians and their property during armed conflicts, including in situations of occupation, and points to where these are addressed in the updated Commentary.

According to the dominant narrative in international humanitarian law, the 1949 Geneva Convention on Civilians is part of the discipline’s humanitarian progress, driven by the International Committee of the Red Cross, in response to atrocities committed during World War II. This paper argues that historical research enables a more nuanced historical account which challenges when, how and by whom the protection of civilians was developed. It demonstrates that the Convention’s protection regime was shaped by the efforts of a variety of non-state actors during the inter-war years. In particular, it focuses on attempts by the International Committee of the Red Cross, International Law Association and International Committee of Military Medicine and Pharmacy to advance the law independently and in cooperation in relation to ‘enemy civilians’ and safety zones after World War I. However, it suggests that these actors were to some extent inhibited by conceptual limitations and self-restraint, which ultimately led to some of the weaknesses in the protection regime under the 1949 ‘Civilian Convention’. The paper thus reveals the struggle over the conceptualisation of individuals who are today considered civilians in the inter-war years which is embedded in the text of the adopted treaty.

This essay provides insights into the circumstances and potential societal impact of more than 10 million evacuees who fled Japan's firebombed cities during World War II. Informed by interviews conducted by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey with Japanese citizens immediately after surrender, this analysis establishes a new vantage point from which to understand the complex social circumstances of Japan in the final months of the war.

This essay assesses the morality of Ukraine's use of drones to attack targets inside Russia. Following its invasion by Russian forces, Ukraine has had a just cause to wage a war of self-defense. However, its efforts to achieve that cause remain subject to moral limits. Even a state that has been unjustly attacked may not, for example, respond by deliberately targeting the attacking state's civilian population. To do so would violate the jus in bello principle of discrimination. The essay first describes how drone technology has frequently enabled long-range strikes against Russian military assets as well as other targets inside cities. It then explains why it would be morally wrong for Ukraine to attack its enemy's population centers. First, Russian civilians are not liable to attack, and this nonliability is undiminished by the injustice of Russia's invasion or by any in bello wrongs committed by the Russian military. Second, attacking Russian cities with drones would arguably achieve little or no self-defensive benefit for Ukraine, and it could even be counterproductive.

The notion of solidarity, although not new to the humanitarian sector, has re-emerged in recent discussions about effective and ethical humanitarian action, particularly in contexts such as Ukraine and Myanmar where the traditional humanitarian principles have been facing certain pressures. Because solidarity appears as a good but can also involve selectivity and privilege, and because it risks continued militarism and normalization of civilians participating within that militarism, the notion of solidarity merits rich and rigorous thinking. This article explores how the notion of solidarity is being utilized by those currently re-emphasizing its importance and what it might mean in practice in today's humanitarian contexts. The article argues that if solidary action involves not only a political stance but solidary working methods, the recent calls for solidarity demand respect for the variety of principles and practices within the humanitarian ecosystem, while nevertheless upholding mutual obligations owed within that professional community – that is, within careful limits as to what is considered humanitarian action.

The end of World War I brought not only the end of a great slaughter but also the creation of new countries, great expectations of better living conditions, and the promise of an end of scarcity. In Maribor, a contested border town occupied by Slovenian troops and annexed to the newly established State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, expectations were even higher. A part of the population opposed the town's annexation to the newly established state and compared the living conditions at home with those in Austria. As early as November 1918, the Slovene City Food Council was established in Maribor to feed the city's population. It introduced measures similar to those introduced during the war, such as food ration cards. Despite these measures, food shortages and hunger were part of everyday life, especially in the winter of 1918–19. This article discusses civilians' survival strategies, as well as continuities and discontinuities between wartime and postwar measures to improve the food supply. It shows that despite the efforts of the new Yugoslav authorities, they often continued wartime practices and food remained of poor quality and difficult to access for most of the population throughout 1919.

Many contemporary armed conflicts are shaped by the reliance on airstrikes using traditional fighter planes or remotely piloted drones. As accounts of civilian casualties from airstrikes abound, the ethics and legality of individual airstrikes and broader targeting practices remain contested. Yet these concerns and debates are not new. In fact, a key attempt to regulate aerial warfare was made 100 years ago. In this article, we approach the regulation of aerial warfare through an examination of the 1923 Hague Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare and the contemporary scholarly discussion of these rules. While the Draft Rules have never been converted into a treaty, they embody logics of thinking about civilians, technologies of aerial warfare, and targeting that are still resonating in contemporary discussions of aerial warfare. This article argues for a contextualized understanding of the Draft Rules as an attempt to adapt International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to the new technological realities while maintaining distinctions between different kinds of spaces and non-combatants. We argue that the Draft Rules prefigure later debates about the legality of aerial bombing by tacitly operating with a narrow understanding of the civilian and by offering a range of excuses and justifications for bombing civilians.

This article argues that the growing involvement of civilians in activities on the digital battlefield during armed conflicts puts individuals at risk of harm and contributes to the erosion of the principle of distinction, a cornerstone of international humanitarian law (IHL). The article begins by outlining the ongoing trend of civilianization of the digital battlefield and puts forward brief scenarios to illustrate it. It then examines the narrow circumstances under which such forms of civilian involvement may qualify as direct participation in hostilities under IHL, and discusses what this means for the individuals concerned, particularly from the perspective of their loss of protection under the law. The analysis shows that certain types of State conduct which put civilians in harm's way by inducing them to directly participate in hostilities may constitute standalone violations of IHL and human rights law obligations. Beyond these specific prescriptions, the encouragement of civilian involvement undermines the principle of distinction, with dangerous ripple effects on the interpretation of those rules of IHL that flow from it. Accordingly, the article concludes that States should act to reverse the trend of civilianization of the digital battlefield and refrain as much as possible from involving civilians in the conduct of cyber hostilities.