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In December 2014, President Obama said that the United States “combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.” Yet over a year later hostilities continue. What are the stakes for humanitarian organizations in the ongoing application—or not—of international humanitarian law (IHL) in Afghanistan and in other contemporary armed conflicts? Does international law provide sufficient guidance for humanitarians and other battlefield actors to discern when today’s armed conflicts end? At this PHAP online IHL expert briefing, Naz Modirzadeh and Dustin Lewis, of the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC), will discuss initial PILAC research on the “end” of armed conflict under IHL. Among the issues they will explore are:

What are the IHL criteria pertaining to the end of armed conflict?
Who benefits, and who is disadvantaged, from a presumption of the continued application of IHL—both its more permissive and its more restrictive elements?
What is at stake for humanitarian actors, for the parties to the conflict, and for affected civilian populations?

Presenters

Naz Modirzadeh is the founding Director of the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC). She regularly advises and briefs international humanitarian organizations, UN agencies, and governments on issues related to international humanitarian law, human rights, and counterterrorism regulations relating to humanitarian assistance. For more than a decade, she has carried out legal research and policy work concerning a number of armed conflict situations. Her scholarship and research focus on intersections between the fields of international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and Islamic law.

Dustin Lewis is a Senior Researcher at the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC). With a focus on public international law sources and methodologies, he leads research projects on the theoretical underpinnings and application of international norms related to contemporary challenges concerning armed conflict.

Event host

Angharad Laing Executive Director, International Association of Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection (PHAP)

Recordings

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Discussion resources

Marko Milanovic, “The end of application of international humanitarian law,” International Review of the Red Cross (2014), 96 (893), 163–188.
Rosa Brooks, “There’s No Such Thing as Peacetime,” Foreign Policy Online, March 13, 2015.
International Committee of the Red Cross, “Scope of the law in armed conflict: The challenge of determining the end of armed conflict [video],” 19 February 2015.

Further resources:

Rogier Bartels, "Temporal Scope of Application of IHL: When do Non-International Armed Conflicts End?" [Part 1] [Part 2], Opinio Juris, 18 & 19 February 2014.
Rogier Bartels, "From Jus in Bello to Jus Post Bellum: When Do Non-International Armed Conflicts End?, in ‘Jus – Post – Bellum’: Mapping the Normative Foundations, eds Carsten Stahn, Jennifer Easterday & Jens Iverson, February 2014.

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