Current Issues of International Humanitarian Law

International terrorism, environmental disasters, unreasonable use of natural resources, wars — are there any legal rules prohibiting or restricting the use of certain means and methods and ensure the protection of victims?

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is a system of treaty and customary international legal norms, applied in both international and internal armed conflicts. It is one of the oldest branches of public international law, as its roots lie in the customs of warfare that existed in ancient Greece and Rome. IHL is closely related to ICL, as war crimes require a contextual element of an armed conflict.

This course is built upon students’ prior knowledge of the IHL fundamentals, and it will strengthen and deepen their expertise in this field. The students will gain a comprehensive understanding of the current issues of implementing provisions of the IHL treaties into domestic legislation in Ukraine and other countries across the globe.

We will discuss implementation of IHL in various national systems and explore challenges of holding those responsible for IHL violations accountable. The course focuses on the most nuanced and complicated issues, such as perfidy and misuse of IHL, identification of an armed conflict in ambiguous cases and during occupation as well as relevance of IHL to terrorism. The course examines the rapidly developing areas of IHL, such as protection of cultural property and ecology, using the case study of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Finally, the course will include discussions on the transformation of IHL in light of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning in an armed conflict, as well as on the issue of humanitarian intervention through the IHL lenses.