Call for Papers - Humanitarian Assistance in Armed Conflicts

Edited by:

Vaios Koutroulis: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Elzbieta Mikos-Skuza: PhD, Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Warsaw, Poland

Submission Status: Open | Submission Deadline: 30 June 2024

Journal of International Humanitarian Action is calling for submissions to our Collection on Humanitarian Assistance in Armed Conflicts.

War is as old as mankind. In today’s world, armed conflicts continue to take place, but they give rise to new questions that urgently need practical answers. Among them are the questions relating to humanitarian assistance in all types of armed conflicts, including the problem of access to humanitarian aid and the protection of humanitarian workers. International Humanitarian Law governing the question of humanitarian assistance in armed conflicts does not always address contemporary challenges in a satisfactory way nor does it provide clear answers to recent developments. Taking into account legal debates and practical challenges we would like to devote one of our special collections to the interpretation of IHL in the field of humanitarian assistance during armed conflicts.

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Meet the Editors

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Vaios Koutroulis: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Vaios Koutroulis is a professor of public international law at the ULB Faculty of Law and Criminology. He also teaches at the Royal Military School of Belgium and has given numerous lectures on international humanitarian law (IHL) and international criminal law, including courses for professionals. His publications focus mainly on IHL and jus contra bellum and include a monograph on belligerent occupation published by Pedone editions (Paris) in 2010. Vaios Koutroulis was an adviser to the Counsel and Advocate of Belgium in the case concerning Questions relating to the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite (Belgium v. Senegal) before the International Court of Justice (2012) and is currently consulting the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on international criminal law questions relating to the negotiations of an international convention on mutual legal assistance for core international crimes (MLA initiative). In November 2021, he has been elected as a member of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, the only treaty-based standing body addressing compliance with the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their first additional protocol.

Elzbieta Mikos-Skuza: University of Warsaw, Poland

Elzbieta Mikos-Skuza is an assistant professor in public international law at the Faculty of Law and Administration UW, director of NOHA master's studies in Humanitarian Action at the University of Warsaw and a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Natolin. She is also the First Vice-President of the International Humanitarian Fact Finding Commission established under Protocol Additional I to the Geneva Conventions on the protection of war victims and a member of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in Sanremo. Elżbieta was the Vice-President of the Polish Red Cross between 2004 and 2012. She has authored numerous publications on public international law and international humanitarian law.

About the collection

In the framework of this special collection we encourage submissions of research articles which deal with this broad issue. Possible topics may include the following:

• Challenges in delivering principled humanitarian aid
• Humanitarian access in law and in practice
• Humanitarian corridors - the concept and the recent experience
• Starvation as a method of warfare
• Humanitarian assistance in situations of siege and/or naval blockade
• Beneficiaries of relief activities
• Providers of relief assistance
• Protection (and loss thereof) of personnel delivering humanitarian assistance
• Special cases of humanitarian assistance, including
- humanitarian assistance in non-international armed conflicts
- humanitarian assistance in occupied territories
• Relationship between International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law with regard to humanitarian assistance
• Data protection, new technologies and humanitarian assistance
• Gender considerations in humanitarian assistance
• Legal consequences of violations of the rules on humanitarian assistance

Image credit: © misu / stock.adobe.com

There are currently no articles in this collection.

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of Research Articles. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system. During the submission process, under the section additional information, you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Humanitarian Assistance in Armed Conflicts" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.

Fees & Funding rules of the journal apply to the Collections.