Dr Hugh McDonnell is based in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh as a Postdoctoral Fellow on a project assessing complicity in…
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The Edinburgh Centre for Legal Theory organised an author-meets-critics workshop on the manuscript of the book Just Justice by Frederick Wilmot-Smith. This workshop was funded…
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Publicising Human Rights violations and holding perpetrators of torture accountable has been guiding practice for much human rights work. As Prof. Tobias Kelly shows in this contribution to the GJA’s Peace & Conflict blog series: rather than shining light into dark places, many victims want the lights switched off. Kelly suggests that that the need for protecting victims may be more important than the need to hold perpetrators accountable.
By Tobias Kelly
Perpetrators need to be held to account and victims need redress. This has been the central principle of human rights work against torture for the past fifty years. However, collaborative work we have been carrying out in Kenya, Bangladesh and Nepal suggests that for many survivors- especially amongst the poorest and most vulnerable in society- the emphasis might be in the wrong place. What most survivors want, above all else, is to feel safe and secure, and accountability has only an indirect relationship with the desire for protection.
Comments closedThis post was written by Sara Valencia and Alejandra Londoño. It reports from a series of recent workshops on the Colombian peace process, led by…
Comments closedThis blog post was written by Lee Caspi and Federica Sola, masters students of the LL.M in Human Rights at the University of Edinburgh. The…
Comments closedVivek Bhatt, a Student Ambassador with the Global Justice Academy (GJA), has written this blog following a panel event he attended at the Edinburgh Law School. The event, hosted by the GJA, explored…
Comments closedThis blog has been written by Dr Grit Wesser, a postdoctoral fellow in Social Anthropology at The University of Edinburgh. Here, she reports from a recent Asylum Monologues…
Comments closedThis blog post was written by Micaela Opoku-Mensah, a masters student in Africa and International Development at The University of Edinburgh. Micaela reports from The…
Comments closedBrooks Marmon is a PhD student in the Centre of African Studies at The University of Edinburgh. His thesis examines Zimbabwean responses to the broader…
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Nicola Perugini on the weaponisation of human bodies and the increasing justification of the killing of innocent civilians through international law
Nicola Perugini is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. For this exclusive blog post in the Global Justice Academy’s Peace and Conflict Series, Nicola was asked to answer the following question about his research:
What does human shielding tell us about the link between international law and contemporary political violence?
Nicola Perugini
Human shielding is growing phenomenon intricately linked to the increasing “weaponisation” of human bodies in contemporary warfare. The term refers to the deployment of civilians in order to deter attacks on combatants or military sites as well as their transformation into a technology of warfare. From Gaza City through Mosul in Iraq to Sri Lanka, accusations of using human shields as an instrument of protection, coercion or deterrence have multiplied in the past few of years.
Indeed, the dramatic increase of urban warfare, including insurgency and counterinsurgency, terrorism and counterterrorism, has inevitably meant that civilians often occupy the front lines in the fighting, while the distinction between civilians and combatants is blurred. This, in turn, presents a series of ethical dilemmas relating to the use of violence and whether the violence deployed complies with international law.
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