War and the city: a history

April 29, 2021 6 mins read Analysis / History / Humanitarian Action / Urban warfare Daniel Palmieri

As long as there have been cities, wars have been staged within them. While the term ‘urban warfare’ conjures more recent images of ...

GCIII Commentary: an Islamic perspective on the treatment of prisoners of war

January 26, 2021 7 mins read Analysis / GCIII Commentary / History / Islamic Law / Law and Conflict / Religion Ahmed Al-Dawoody

While ratification of the Geneva Conventions is a relatively recent phenomenon, warfare has always been ...

GCIII Commentary: a Buddhist perspective on the treatment of prisoners of war

January 19, 2021 7 mins read Analysis / Conduct of Hostilities / GCIII Commentary / Generating Respect for IHL / History / Humanitarian Action / Humanitarian Principles / Law and Conflict / Religion Asanga Tilakaratne, Peter Harvey, Sunil Kariyakarawana & Andrew Bartles-Smith

While ratification of the Geneva Conventions is a relatively recent phenomenon, warfare has always been ...

August 12th: hopes and wishes?

August 12, 2020 9 mins read Analysis / Generating Respect for IHL / History / Law and Conflict / Sexual Violence British Red Cross-ICRC customary IHL research team

Today’s 71st anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions is an opportunity to recall once more ...

An unnecessary evil: the discursive battle over the meaning of nuclear weapons

August 6, 2020 13 mins read Analysis / History / Humanitarian Action / Law and Conflict Magnus Løvold

The testimonies of the victims and survivors of nuclear weapons prompt us to imagine the ...

From the ‘Spanish Flu’ to COVID-19: lessons from the 1918 pandemic and First World War

April 23, 2020 10 mins read COVID-19 and conflict / History Cédric Cotter

The influenza pandemic from 1918-1919, commonly known as the ‘Spanish Flu’, was the most severe health disaster in recent history. The chaos and ...

Cultural property protection: a humanitarian concern

February 13, 2020 8 mins read Analysis / Conduct of Hostilities / History / Law and Conflict / Religion / Sexual Violence Jennifer Price-Jones

Historic cities, monuments, antiquities and cultural ceremonies transcend human generations, helping construct a sense of ...

Memory and war: does time really heal?

December 17, 2019 6 mins read History / Humanitarian Action / Identity / Review-related Kvitoslava Krotiuk

Commemorating the centenary of the first Remembrance Day, dedicated to remembering members of the armed forces who have died in the line of ...

Vincent de Paul: A groundbreaking humanitarian

August 14, 2019 11 mins read History / Humanitarian Action / Humanitarian Principles / Religion Keltoum Irbah

More than 350 years after his death in 1660, the life and trailblazing humanitarian work ...

Is arms control over emerging technologies just a peacetime luxury? Lessons learned from the First World War

January 18, 2019 14 mins read History / Humanitarian Action / Law and Conflict / Weapons Eric Germain

At the turn of the twentieth century, many engineers with fertile imaginations—from France’s Gustave Gabet to America’s Orville Wright—hoped that their inventions would ...