"War"

Chair: Dr Maria Varaki, Lecturer in International Law, Department of War Studies

Speaker: Andrew Clapham, Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute

 

How relevant is the concept of war today? This book examines how notions about war continue to influence how we conceive rights and obligations in national and international law. It also considers the role international law plays in limiting what is forbidden and legitimated in times of war or armed conflict.

The book highlights how, even though war has been outlawed and should be finished as an institution, states nevertheless continue to claim that they can wage necessary wars of self-defence, engage in lawful killings in war, imprison law-of-war detainees, and attack objects which are said to be part of a war-sustaining economy. The book includes an overall account of the contemporary laws of war and delves into whether states should be able to continue to claim so-called 'belligerent rights' over their enemies and those accused of breaching expectations of neutrality.

A central claim in the book is as follows: while there is general agreement that war has been abolished as a legal institution for settling disputes, the time has come to admit that the belligerent rights that once accompanied states at war are no longer available. The conclusion is that claiming to be in a war or an armed conflict does not grant anyone a licence to kill people, destroy things, and acquire other people's property or territory.

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Bio

Andrew Clapham is Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute. He was the first Director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (June 2006 - July 2014). He teaches international human rights law, the laws of war, and public international law. Prior to coming to the Institute in 1997, he was the Representative of Amnesty International at the United Nations in New York.

Andrew Clapham has worked as Special Adviser on Corporate Responsibility to High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, and Adviser on International Humanitarian Law to Sergio Vieira de Mello, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Iraq. He was elected as a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists in 2013. He is currently serving as a member of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.