This book provides a comprehensive yet concise overview of key issues related to the regulation of armed hostilities between States, and between States and non-State groups.
Coverage begins with an explanation of the conditions that result in the applicability of international humanitarian law, and then subsequently addresses how the law influences a broad range of operational, humanitarian, and accountability issues that arise during military operations.
Each chapter provides a clear and comprehensive explanation of humanitarian law, focusing especially on how it impacts operations. The chapters also highlight both contemporary controversies in the field and potentially emerging norms of the law.
The book is an ideal text for students studying international humanitarian law for the first time, as well as an excellent introduction for students and practitioners of public international law and international relations.
About the Author: Geoffrey Corn is the Vinsen & Elkins Professor of Law at the South Texas College of Law Houston. Prior to joining the South Texas faculty in 2005, Professor Corn served in the U.S. Army for 21 years, retiring in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Following retirement from active duty, Professor Corn served an additional year as the Army's senior civilian law of war expert in the Office of the Judge Advocate General and Chief of the Law of War Branch in the International Law Division.
Ken Watkin served for 33 years in the Canadian Forces, including four years as the Judge Advocate General. In 2002 he was appointed to the Order of Military Merit, in 2006 a Queen's Counsel, and in 2010 he received the Canadian Bar Association President's Award. Ken was responsible for providing operational law advice regarding Canada's military operations post-9/11, and worked as government counsel for various inquiries arising from the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Since his retirement in 2010, he has served as a foreign observer to the Israeli Independent Commission investigating the 2010 Gaza blockade incident, and as the Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the United States Naval War College. He is the author of Fighting at the Legal Boundaries: Controlling the Use of Force in Contemporary Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2016), which was awarded the 2017 Francis Lieber Prize by the Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict, the American Society of International Law.
Jamie Williamson is the executive director of the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers Association. He previously worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross in a number of legal, operational and managerial positions in Geneva, Washington D.C., and Southern Africa. He also served from 1996-2005 with the UN ad hoc international criminal tribunals in Tanzania and the Netherlands, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Jamie is on the faculty of American University's Program of Advanced Studies of the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.
