Blog Symposium

Accessing Citizenship: Patterns of Civil Registration and Insurgent Conflict in India

Citizenship grants access to the rights enjoyed by all members of the political community of a given state. To claim these rights, citizens must be able to provide evidence of membership based on birth place and/or parentage. Yet, according to recent World Bank estimates, about 850 million people lack official documents such as birth certificates, ID …

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“Received with Thanks”: Understanding the role of receipts in political order in northeast India

Above is a receipt issued by one of the largest non-state armed groups in northeast India to the owner of a twelve-wheeled truck. The driver of the truck will carry the receipt with him at all times and show it at checkposts along the road where he will encounter this non-state armed group, amongst many …

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Legal identity in a looking-glass world

In chapter 5 of Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland, Alice has an encounter with the Caterpillar: “Who are you?†said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must …

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Armed Conflict is not the Only Emergency: Armed Groups, Climate Change and Emergency Governance

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, …

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Three birds with one stone: the potential of special agreements to vaccinate in non-international armed conflicts

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 …

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Let’s talk about policy: non-State armed groups and international environmental law 

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, …

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Teaching legal blogging and a student blog symposium on AGIL

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 …

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Emergency governance: armed-non-state actors facing COVID-19

*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 …

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Ensuring vaccinations in territories under the control of non-State armed groups

*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 …

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COVID-19 measures by armed groups: what legal framework applies?

*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 …

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