Articles of War>
14 November 2023
Our LLM alumnus Ioannis Bamnios – who graduated in October from our LLM in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights – published the main and very innovative argument of his LLM paper on the ‘conduct of hostilities in occupied territories’ in the leading blog Articles of War of the US Military Academy at West Point.
Articles of War
His blog post forms part of Article of War 2023 Symposium on Israel-Hamas and aims to shed light on the circumstances under which civilians in occupied territories lose protection from direct attack. In this post, Ioannis Bamnios explores direct civilian participation in hostilities and its application within the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, analyzing inter alia mutual exclusivity of hostilities and occupation.
‘My blog post is a shorter version of my LLM paper on the direct participation in hostilities in places where there are no ongoing hostilities (in the IHL sense of the term) and applies the findings of the paper to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The knowledge I acquired during the drafting of my LLM paper enabled me to write this piece and provide a legal response to one of the issues that arose after the recent eruption of hostilities in Israel and Gaza’ explains Ioannis Bamnios.
‘Our alumnus developed in his LLM paper an innovative and nuanced solution to a question of great contemporary relevance for IHL and war victims. Now he succeeded in having his core idea published in a blog very much read by military lawyers all around the world. I can only hope that those involved in an occupation will follow his advice’ underlines his LLM paper supervisor Professor Marco Sassòli.
Applications for the upcoming academic year of our Online Executive Master – MAS in International Law in Armed Conflict - are now open. They will remain open until 30 May 2025, with courses starting at the end of September 2025.
Geneva Academy
Natasha Floodgate, Geeta Mahapatra, and Thijs van der Horst will represent the Geneva Academy at the 47th edition of the Jean-Pictet Competition that will take place in Denpasar, Indonesia, from 22 February to 1 March 2025.
ICRC
Co-hosted with the ICRC, this event aims to enhance the capacity of academics to teach and research international humanitarian law, while also equipping policymakers with an in-depth understanding of ongoing legal debates.
The Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts project (RULAC) is a unique online portal that identifies and classifies all situations of armed violence that amount to an armed conflict under international humanitarian law (IHL). It is primarily a legal reference source for a broad audience, including non-specialists, interested in issues surrounding the classification of armed conflicts under IHL.
UNAMID
This project will develop guidance to inform security, human rights and environmental debates on the linkages between environmental rights and conflict, and how their better management can serve as a tool in conflict prevention, resilience and early warning.