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The Geneva Conventions have achieved universal ratification, and Additional Protocols I and II are binding on all African states except Eritrea and Somalia; however, their observance in African conflicts is flawed and inconsistent. From deliberate attacks on civilian populations to abduction and hostage-taking, humanitarian rules are openly flouted. Through an extensive assessment of the domestic measures required to implement the Geneva Conventions and Protocols in Africa, this article identifies the current level of implementation, existing gaps and possible non-legal factors that impact respect for the instruments in African conflicts. Violations are often associated with historical, political, religious and social factors that tainted the instruments’ lofty provisions and bequeathed a legacy that challenges the obligation to respect. Additionally, continuous political and religious struggles and the search for identity and relevance have displaced the ideals of the instruments’ humanitarian provisions. Reversing this trend requires an approach that appeals to and engages the continent beyond the traditional argument of obligation to respect.

The road towards effective implementation of international humanitarian law (IHL) is a continuous process where important milestones will be reached at each step. As part of such a process, national committees and similar entities on IHL have played a key driving role. As with most long-haul road trips, one tends to start with an idea of the roads that will be taken and what the end destination will look like. In this case, the common destination is better respect for IHL. While the destination never changes, the different roads to be travelled can multiply, creating new opportunities through events that arise, and actors encountered along the way. Likewise, when the first national IHL committees were formed in the 1970s to advise and assist their States on the domestic implementation of IHL, they undoubtedly followed different roadmaps from those followed today. As IHL has evolved to keep pace with new realities of warfare, so too has the work of national IHL committees. New treaties have been adopted, new interpretations have been agreed upon, requiring new domestic laws and measures. This article will begin by pinpointing where exactly the journey started for national IHL committees, highlighting that the creation of these bodies coincided with important developments across the international landscape which would come to reinforce domestic implementation of IHL. In the second section, the authors will provide a detailed mapping of the roads generally travelled by these entities, with the intention to showcase the multi-faceted nature of their work and the innumerable milestones achieved along the way. The final section will explore the material, political and structural road bumps which are slowing down the work of some national IHL committees and will provide recommendations on how these entities may overcome these hurdles.

In recent years, the international community has worked to confront the large and growing threat of terrorism, including by introducing new counterterrorism (CT) measures and tightening existing ones. These measures take many forms, including international, regional and domestic sanctions against individuals, groups and other entities. Such efforts pursue the legitimate aims of security and international peace – things that terrorism undermines and goes against – but they have, at the same time, implicated a degree of overlap and confusion between international humanitarian law (IHL), on the one hand, and the law and policy framework underwriting CT measures and sanctions regimes, on the other, particularly as both apply to and affect principled humanitarian action. This article addresses this area of overlap and confusion. First, it examines the applicability of IHL to CT measures and operations. Next, it addresses the co-application of IHL, CT regulations and sanctions regimes, from the mindset of preserving IHL without impeding CT measures and their objectives. The article then examines the legal questions that arise when sanctions regimes and CT measures affect IHL-mandated and IHL-protected activities undertaken by impartial humanitarian organizations. Finally, the article analyzes recent developments and makes proposals aimed at preserving an effective humanitarian space in contexts where IHL, CT legal frameworks and sanctions apply simultaneously.

The multifaceted nature of peace operations today and the increasingly violent environments in which their personnel operate increase the likelihood of their being called upon to use force. It thus becomes all the more important to understand when and how international humanitarian law (IHL) applies to their action. This article attempts to clarify the conditions for IHL applicability to multinational forces, the extent to which this body of law applies to peace operations, the determination of the parties to a conflict involving a multinational peace operation and the classification of such conflict. Finally, it tackles the important question of the personal, temporal and geographical scope of IHL in peace operations.

The deliberate starvation of populations remains a critical issue in numerous conflicts, highlighting the urgent need for this study. States have both positive obligations to protect individuals from starvation and negative obligations to refrain from actions that negatively impact access to life-sustaining supplies like food, water, and medicines. However, the evolution of international legal standards may sometimes be restricted by existing positive law formulations. It is necessary to examine whether existing international law (lex lata) already prohibits starvation or if further legal developments (de lege ferenda) are needed to fill protection gaps. A recognition of the interconnectedness of international humanitarian law (IHL), human rights law (IHRL), and international criminal law (ICL), and of the demands of protecting human dignity pervading much of international law, can help to identify the full scope of the prohibition of starvation and of the protection from it. Armed conflicts disrupt food security, and while IHL establishes norms to mitigate these impacts, it often allows exceptions that cause harm to human life. This paper advocates for a comprehensive interpretation of IHL norms, incorporating principles of human rights law and international food security law, to protect essential human needs. They can bring to light how some isolated readings of IHL would seem to permit the causation of hunger in ways that are actually forbidden by a systemic interpretation of international law. The safeguarding of food resources and access to adequate survival goods and services, both during and outside of armed conflicts, requires an integrated legal approach. This approach reinforces the importance of human dignity and the protection of fundamental rights, ensuring that legal interpretations do not regress but rather advance the protection of essential human needs.

The classification of armed conflicts under international humanitarian law (IHL) carries critical legal and humanitarian consequences, particularly regarding the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, the status of combatants, and the protection of civilians. Despite the rise of hybrid and asymmetric warfare, conflict typologies—namely, international armed conflict (IAC) and non-international armed conflict (NIAC)—are often treated as binary. This research addresses a significant gap by comparatively analyzing the armed conflicts in Palestine and Ukraine, both of which challenge existing classifications due to the involvement of non-state actors, foreign interventions, and varying degrees of territorial occupation and control. The study employs a doctrinal legal method, drawing on core international humanitarian law (IHL) instruments (e.g., the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols), key jurisprudence (Tadić, Nicaragua), and scholarly contributions. It integrates a comparative structure to highlight how variables such as actor typology, command structure, external support, and regional political dynamics influence conflict categorization. Findings show that both cases illustrate legal ambiguities: Ukraine presents a dominant International Armed Conflict (IAC) with Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC) traits in eastern regions, while the Israel-Palestine conflict oscillates between NIAC and IAC criteria depending on the framing and territorial context. This analysis also reveals the strategic manipulation of legal categories by state and non-state actors, emphasizing that classification is not a purely legal determination but a politically loaded act with implications for accountability, legitimacy, and the regulation of force. Ultimately, the study argues that the binary IAC/NIAC framework struggles to reflect the complexity of modern warfare, underscoring the need for more adaptable and context-sensitive legal interpretations.

This comment argues for the recognition of ecocide as an international crime, focusing on its contemporary legal relevance and the growing momentum for its codification. Originally coined in 1970 to describe wartime environmental destruction, the term ecocide was framed in parallel to genocide and grounded in the post–World War II development of international criminal law. Although initial legal efforts to formalize ecocide, including proposed conventions and debates during the drafting of the Rome Statute, failed to secure sufficient political support, these early shortcomings have been re-energized by rising environmental consciousness and sustained legal advocacy, particularly by the Stop Ecocide Foundation. Recent developments, including the 2021 legal definition proposed by the Independent Expert Panel and the 2024 amendment proposal to the Rome Statute advanced by Pacific Island nations, reflect a renewed and increasingly actionable international consensus. By examining the conceptual genealogy of ecocide and its doctrinal links to international humanitarian and criminal law, this comment contends that recognizing ecocide as a core international crime is not only a normative necessity but also a legally coherent and pragmatic step. It directly responds to the scale and urgency of present environmental crises and addresses a longstanding gap in the enforcement architecture of international criminal law.

The present study aimed to analyse the integrated histopathological lesions (IHLs) of the gill, liver and intestine of Catla catla exposed to the different doses of UV-B radiation. Gill exhibited the lesions like hypertrophy, hyperplasia, vacuolation, fusion of the gill filaments, rupture in the gill lamellae, epithelial cell lifting and necrosis. The UV-B-exposed liver of Catla showed the lesions like the degeneration of nucleus, the disarrangement of hepatocytes, sinusoidal vacuolation, epitheliod histiocyst, hepatocellular adenoma, exocrine adenoma, cyst formation and diffused epithelial necrosis (DEN). UV-B-exposed intestine showed the lesions like the distortion of columnar epithelial cells (CECs), distortion in lamina propria (LP), disruption in brush border (BB), vacuolation in LP, the presence of submucosal mass (SM), the degeneration of nucleus, the presence of tactoid bodies, the presence of aschoff nodules and metatypical cell carcinoma. These histopathological alterations can be considered as the main blocking alterations of the growth and absorption as well as the final production of fish which can cause a serious loss in total yield to fish farmers which can interrupt the profitable economical production of fish. Graphical Abstract

Common Article 1 to the four Geneva Conventions lays down an obligation to respect and ensure respect for the Conventions in all circumstances. This paper focuses on the second part of this obligation, in particular on the responsibility of third States not involved in a given armed conflict to take action in order to safeguard compliance with the Geneva Conventions by the parties to the conflict. It concludes that third States have an international legal obligation not only to avoid encouraging international humanitarian law violations committed by others, but also to take measures to put an end to on-going violations and to actively prevent their occurrence.

The intersection between autonomous weapon systems (‘AWS’) and non-State armed groups (‘NSAG’) is an underexplored aspect of the AWS debate. This article explores the main ways future policymakers can reduce the risk of NSAGs committing violations of the laws of armed conflict (‘LOAC’) using AWS once the technology becomes more prolific and easily distributable. It does this by sketching a chronological picture of an NSAG’s weapons obtention process, looking first at its likely suppliers and transport routes (acquisition), and, subsequently, at factors which can increase the risk of LOAC violations once the system is in their possession (use). With regard to use, we find that the lack of explicit legal obligations in LOAC to (a) review weapons meant solely for transfer and (b) provide technical training to recipients of transfer constitute serious reasons why LOAC violations may be aggravated with the introduction of AWS to insurgent groups. We also find, however, that States are uniquely and powerfully placed to address both acquisition and use factors, and outline how they can be persuaded into implementing the risk-reducing measures recommended in this article for purely strategic reasons, i.e., even if they express no interest in improving LOAC compliance per se.