Riccardo Ceva - The International Humanitarian Law – origin, application and implementation

This Presentation about International Humanitarian Law is based on the needs to give to the students the main tools to face with the International Humanitarian Law – referring to the main duties, rules and obligations in accordance with the IHL.
The lecture will be structured into 4 main modules referring to IHL:
• IHL historical background;
• What is IHL?;
• Implementation of IHL;
• Breaches of IHL.
The historical background will lead the students to know the origin and the history of the IHL from its former examples (i.e. The Code of Hammurabi, the Manu's Law or the Pax Dei etc.), to the Universal codification happened during the contemporary Era (i.e. WWI & WWII).
The second module of this presentation is represented by the answer to the question what is IHL?. The aim of this module is to explain what IHL is and what is its scope throughout the definition of its sources (i.e., Geneva Law, the Hague Law, Int.le Customary Law etc.), and main rules and obligations - throughout the main Conventions and Treaties on IHL (i.e. the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; the 1980 Conventional Weapons Convention and its five protocols; the 1997 Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel mines, etc.)
The third module on the implementation of IHL will allow the students to understand why respect IHL, who is bound by IHL, when apply it, how ensure respect of IHL, and its implementation.

The fourth and last module is focused on highlighting what are the main breaches and violations of IHL and what are the main means to repress them. In this module a special attention will be paid on the International Criminal Court, in order to see how the main mean to control and repress breaches of IHL is structured and how it works.
IHL.pdf (558 KB)