The reach of the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years has been indiscriminate. The pandemic has swept throughout the world, from peaceful countries to countries embroiled in armed conflict and areas under the control of armed groups. Like States, some armed groups have responded to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic by imposing lockdowns, …
Since their development, the administration of vaccine doses is the main tool combating the further spread of the COVID-19 virus. Currently, roughly 4,5 billion people in the world have been fully vaccinated. Strikingly, most of these vaccines are administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries leaving out the most vulnerable populations in conflict regions. Missing critical …
In recent years, legal scholars have sought to answer the question of whether, and if so how, non-State armed groups (NSAGs) are bound by international human rights law (IHRL). In the same vein, however, it remains unexplored whether NSAGs have obligations under international environmental law (IEL). This gap was addressed by Thibaud de La Bourdonnaye, …
Let’s talk about policy: non-State armed groups and international environmental law Read More »
Between 14th March – 1st April, I taught a short four-session (1 hr 45 mins each) course entitled Armed Groups and International Law in which the assessment type was legal blogging. The course fitted into our capita selecta period of teaching on the public international law LLM at Utrecht. During this period, students are able …
Teaching legal blogging and a student blog symposium on AGIL Read More »
*This blog is written in the authors’ personal capacities and does not purport to represent the views of Geneva Call* For the past two years, governments have been adopting a wide range of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 and limit its human and economic impact, with a profound effect on the daily lives …
Emergency governance: armed-non-state actors facing COVID-19 Read More »
*The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations* By December 2021, people living in humanitarian emergencies had received less than 4 per cent of the 8 billion globally administered doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. As a UN official stated, the “poorest and conflict-affected …
Ensuring vaccinations in territories under the control of non-State armed groups Read More »
*The views expressed in this post are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ICRC* In 2020, armed groups in Colombia began imposing COVID-19 containment measures ranging from bans on traveling in boats and vehicles to shop closures, night-time curfews and lockdowns of entire communities. This is only one example …
COVID-19 measures by armed groups: what legal framework applies? Read More »
Individuals living in conflict-affected zones have been particularly vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19 during the last few years. This has been mainly due to their lack of access to appropriate facilities, testing kits and vaccines, often combined with unstable and violent scenarios. Understandably, as a result of the predominant State-centric architecture of the international …
Blog symposium: The Role of Non-State Armed Groups in Addressing the COVID-19 Pandemic Read More »
I want to start by saying that I have always maintained that international law should be a tool rather than an obstacle to peace negotiations; particularly in a world where there are still more that 74 non-international armed conflicts across 25 countries. But if we look at international law today, this is not exactly the …
Peace Treaty Symposium: A Reaction to Mark Freeman’s Post Read More »
The Peace Treaty Initiative aims to fill a “critical gap in international law” by “developing an international law of peace negotiation”, as Mark Freeman explains in the introductory post of this symposium. This ‘gap’, i.e., the absence of an overarching international legal regime that governs peacemaking, has attracted significant attention in the last decade or …