Protecting civilians against digital threats: four worrying trends and recommendations to address them

October 19, 2023 11 mins read Analysis / New Technologies Cordula Droege, Laurent Gisel, Tilman Rodenhäuser & Joelle Rizk

In situations of armed conflict, access to digital technology can save lives. But the use of cyber, information, and other digital operations by ...

Space security governance: steps to limit the human costs of military operations in outer space

August 22, 2023 13 mins read Analysis / Law and Conflict / Outer Space / Technology in Humanitarian Action / War, law, and outer space / Weapons Nivedita Raju

Civilians are heavily dependent on space systems for everyday life. Yet, those same space systems ...

Reducing the civilian cost of military counterspace operations

August 17, 2023 14 mins read Analysis / Avoiding civilian harm during military cyber operations / Communications / IHL / Law and Conflict / New Technologies / Outer Space / Technology in Humanitarian Action / War, law, and outer space Dr Stuart Eves, PhD, FRAS, FBIS & Gilles Doucet

Enabled by advanced technologies, the past few decades have seen a revolution in the utility ...

Collateral damage from the use of indirect fire in populated areas – can it be avoided?

May 5, 2022 11 mins read Analysis / Humanitarian Action / Urban warfare Ove Dullum

Collateral damage is the unintended damage inflicted on humans, structures, animals and the natural environment that are not the target of the attack. ...

Preparedness in urban operations: a commander’s planning checklist to protect civilians

May 11, 2021 12 mins read Analysis / Humanitarian Action / Law and Conflict / Religion / Urban warfare Sahr Muhammedally

Implementing international humanitarian law’s (IHL) precautionary measures for both defending and attacking forces is a ...

Joint Blog Series: Are sieges prohibited under contemporary IHL?

February 5, 2019 4 mins read Joint Blog Series / Law and Conflict Gloria Gaggioli

Closing out our Joint Series is a post by on Gloria Gaggioli on siege warfare published by EJIL Talk! Are Sieges Prohibited under Contemporary IHL? ...

Joint Blog Series: Sieges, evacuations and urban warfare: Thoughts from the Transatlantic Workshop on International Law and Armed Conflict

February 5, 2019 4 mins read Conduct of Hostilities / Joint Blog Series / Law and Conflict Laurie Blank

Laurie Blank recently wrote some of her thoughts on sieges on EJIL Talk! as part ...

Joint Blog Series: Urban warfare: The obligations of defenders

January 28, 2019 3 mins read Conduct of Hostilities / Joint Blog Series / Law and Conflict Aurel Sari

The fifth post in our Joint Series as published by Lawfare—Urban warfare: The obligations of the ...

Joint Blog Series: Precautionary measures in urban warfare: A commander’s obligation to obtain information

January 10, 2019 14 mins read Conduct of Hostilities / Joint Blog Series / Law and Conflict Jonathan Horowitz

Cities across the globe are expanding at unprecedented rates and this urban population boom is ...

The world needs robust peacekeeping not aggressive peacekeeping

May 15, 2018 10 mins read Analysis / Conduct of Hostilities / Counterterrorism / Humanitarian Action / Law and Conflict / The most read blog posts in 2018 Mona Ali Khalil

Since 1999, and in response to the tragic failures to protect civilians in Rwanda and Srebrenica, the ...

Casualty recording in and for the modern age: Why standards matter

November 8, 2016 10 mins read Analysis / Events and highlights / Humanitarian Action Hamit Dardagan & John Sloboda

In peacetime and wartime alike, it is not sufficient to ask “how many died,” but also “who died”. Casualty recording is a systematic ...

Separated: The humanitarian consequences of solitary confinement in detention

July 15, 2016 7 mins read Events and highlights The editors

Penitentiary authorities around the world have increasingly turned to restrictive detention regimes such as solitary confinement to manage high risk detainees. What are ...

protection of civilians