The use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area in populated areas is one of the main causes of civilian harm in today’s armed conflicts. Despite their widespread and reverberating effects, they are the weapons predominantly in use in urban warfare today.

In this post, part of our urban warfare series and marking the launch of a new ICRC report, ICRC Legal Adviser Eirini Giorgou unpacks the deadly effects of these weapons on civilians and the challenges of using them in compliance with international humanitarian law. She fleshes out the ICRC’s call to action to avoid using heavy explosive weapons in populated areas, as a matter of policy, and impose restrictions and limitations on their use.

Debates concerning the regulation of choices made by States in conducting hostilities are often limited to the use of weapons . . . but our understanding of weapons is outdated. New technologies – especially those with embedded artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, even if non-weaponized – are significantly transforming contemporary warfare. The indirect influence of these technologies on warfare decisions is consistently underestimated.

In this post, Klaudia Klonowska, a researcher with the Asser Institute’s DILEMA project, calls for a dramatic shift in what we consider to be an important tool of warfare. Not weapons, but all technologies of warfare. She argues that we need to acknowledge that the choice of technologies may influence offensive capabilities just as much as the choice of weapons.

If the 2021 IPCC report is a code red for humanity, then humanitarian organizations are the first responders. Humanitarian organizations do not just deal with climate-related disasters, they also often work in regions where the combined impacts of climate change and conflict increase the challenges of both emergency relief and longer-term development.

In this post, Kheira Tarif, Research Assistant in the Climate Change and Risk Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) argues that new tools are needed in the humanitarian toolkit to make conflict analyses more climate-sensitive and anticipate climate-related security risks.

In conjunction with the movement to prevent the environmental impacts of armed conflict has come a growing recognition of the need to address the harm that has already occurred. Mine action, which aims to reduce the effects of landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW), provides a valuable model for assisting victims of and remediating the environment contaminated by toxic remnants of war (TRW).

In this post, part of the War, Law and the Environment blog series with the Conflict and Environment Observatory, Bonnie Docherty of Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and Human Rights Watch shows how mine action has influenced the positive obligations in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and argues that it should guide implementation of the TPNW and efforts to deal with TRW more broadly.

Environmental considerations are rightly gaining increased prominence and awareness. Environmental experts agree that unprecedented changes in climate and biodiversity are taking place, threatening nature and human livelihoods around the world. The humanitarian community increasingly understands the need to identify and assess how their operations affect the natural environment and to mitigate the negative environmental impacts wherever possible. The mine action sector is no exception.

In this blog post, and as part of the ICRC series on war, law and the environment, Alex Frost from Mine Action Review outlines the environmental impacts of explosive ordnance contamination and the impacts of survey and clearance of that ordnance, elements of regulatory frameworks and treaty commitments, and key mitigation measures for the sector.

Sexual violence is widespread and prevalent in many modern armed conflicts. Interviewing the people who have endured sexual violence is one of the most challenging tasks for any journalist.

In this post to mark the 30th campaign of the 16 Days of Action, Drew Ambrose – one of Al Jazeera English’s most experienced and awarded foreign correspondents – describes his experience and technique for reporting on these pervasive acts of brutality in conflict zones.

Despite clear legal prohibitions, sexual violence remains widespread and prevalent during armed conflicts and other situations of violence, with grave humanitarian consequences. Sexual violence is often utilized as a tactical or strategic means of overwhelming and weakening the adversary, whether directly or indirectly, by targeting the civilian population.

In this post to mark the 30th campaign of the 16 Days of Action, ICRC historian Daniel Palmieri examines ICRC inaction during the mid-20th century – and the Swiss cultural backdrop against which the organization operated at that time – to unearth contextual and structural factors that contributed to this glaring historical passivity.

The spectrum of misogynistic violence between incels (‘involuntary celibates’) and non-State armed groups using extreme violence against women is based around the desire to restore ‘traditional’ gender norms of male dominance and maintain systemic inequality between men and women. This often manifests in gender-based hate crimes before escalating into community violence and armed conflict.

In this post, part of the 16 Days of Action, Christie J. Edwards, Deputy Head of the Tolerance and Non-Discrimination Department at the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, encourages governments and policy makers to ensure effective criminal justice responses to gender-based hate crimes and all other forms of violence against women in order to address and prevent violence and armed conflict, as well as build sustainable peace.

Thirty years ago today, 23 women launched the ‘16 Days of Action’ against gender-based violence.[1] Each year, this campaign begins on the 25th of November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) and ends on the 10th of December (Human Rights Day) to symbolically link these two days. In the three decades since, much has been achieved – we now have many international commitments and plans of action to eliminate gender-based violence. A critical component of these is the modification of domestic legislation.

In this post to mark the 30th campaign of the 16 Days of Action, Rachael Kitching, Vanessa Murphy and Kelisiana Thynne of the ICRC legal division unpack the ICRC’s Checklist on the Domestic Implementation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Prohibiting Sexual Violence. The Checklist sets out State responsibilities regarding the criminal repression of sexual violence as a war crime, as well as examples of good practice for service accessibility and special measures of protection. It presents easy-to-follow guidance to assist States and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement to identify and address legislative gaps.

The term ‘human shields’ describes a method of warfare prohibited by international humanitarian law (IHL), during which the presence of civilians or the movement of the civilian population, whether voluntary or involuntary, is used to shield military objectives from attack, or to shield, favour or impede military operations. Human shields are always protected from attack unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.

While the law is clear, the reality can be blurred by the discursive use of human shields. In this instalment of our urban warfare special series, Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini – authors of ‘Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire’ – build upon Zoi Lafazani’s post and discuss what they refer to as ‘proximate shields’, whereby humans are framed as shields merely due to their proximity to belligerents.