Everything you always wanted to know about International Humanitarian Law (IHL)

Aid workers under fire. Civilians in trouble. Attacks on essential infrastructure such as hospitals. These are common challenges that we have to deal with in humanitarian action. In doing so, we invoke – almost as a matter of course – the international humanitarian law. However, compliance with or enforcement of this law is no easy task. And its application is often subject to interpretation and manipulation. 

This causes frustration. Among aid organisations and their employees ‘on the ground’, and also among lawyers. This is partly due to the fact that both fields of work overlap, but that there is not always shared knowledge. And that expectations sometimes diverge. 

• Jan Tijmen Ninck Blok, lawyer, the Netherlands Red Cross 
• Jeroen van den Boogaard, lecturer in humanitarian law, University of Amsterdam and lawyer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2020. 

This is an interactive session. The speakers will kick off with a brief outline of the ins and outs of humanitarian law and how it relates to the practice of humanitarian aid. After that, there will be room for an ‘ask me anything’ and for an open discussion, also about difficult and politically sensitive topics. 

Jan Tijmen Ninck Blok has been active in the Red Cross movement since 2017. He is currently a lawyer at the Netherlands Red Cross on the theme of humanitarian law of war. Previously, he led a study on this subject at the ICRC in Geneva. Before his time at the Red Cross, he worked for the United Nations in various countries on protection of civilians in times of crisis. 

Jeroen van den Boogaard is a lecturer in humanitarian law at the University of Amsterdam and has been a lawyer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2020. Before that, he was a military lawyer at the Royal Netherlands Army, head of the humanitarian law department of the Netherlands Red Cross, and university lecturer in military law at the Netherlands Defence Academy. 

Participation is open to employees of KUNO members. Please register via kuno@kuno-platform.nl.

Limited places available.

– Pictures Red Cross –