About the author(s):
Rogier is a researcher at the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA) and works at the Dutch National Prosecutor’s Office. He holds LL.M-degrees from Utrecht University and the University of Nottingham. Before taking up his current positions, he was an associate legal officer in Chambers at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and a legal adviser at the International Humanitarian Law Division of the Netherlands Red Cross.
Rogier is an adjunct-lecturer at the Hague University of Applied Sciences, where he teaches international humanitarian law, and he co-convenes the Hague Initiative for Law and Armed Conflict.
Online lectures advanced IHL course
Every two years, the ICRC organises an “Advanced Training Course in International Humanitarian Law for University Teachers” in Geneva. Having taken part myself a few years ago, I can recommend to everyone this opportunity to discuss IHL with peers, the ICRC organisers and the excellent speakers. The ICRC has now made the podcasts of the nine of the lectures of the most recent (November 2013) course available on its website (see here). Some of IHL’s best speakers, such as Marco Sassoli and Francoise Hampson discuss current topics, such as the “Qualification of conflicts and the issue of scope of the battlefield”, “The Use of force in armed conflicts: interplay between conduct of hostilities and law enforcement paradigms”, respectively. Although topics such as cyber warfare are also discussed, the online lectures of the course are especially interesting for the readers of this blog as the course mainly focussed (in part due to the integration of a seminar on the awarding of the Reuter price to Sandesh Sivukumaran’s book on the law of NIACs) on non-international armed conflicts and the specific challenges these conflicts pose to application of IHL.
Use of Force in Armed Conflicts
This evening (European time), at the American University’s Washington College of Law, a panel discussion is held on Targeting the Sleeping Fighter and Other Hard Legal Issues: A Discussion on the Use of Force in Non-International Armed Conflicts. I am not aware of any podcast, but for those who cannot be present in DC, the recent ICRC report “Use of Force in Armed Conflicts” (prepared on the basis of an expert meeting on the interplay between the conduct of hostilities and law enforcement paradigms) is now available online provides a wealth of interesting issues, such as the legality of the use of force against an isolated) sleeping fighter (in times of a NIAC) and the use of force during riots (taking place within an pre-existing armed conflict). See also this post on a related topic at the ICRC’s Intercross blog.