ILF - Denial of humanitarian access during Armed Conflicts Seminar

Rogier Bartels (International Criminal Court) For the past four years Rogier Bartels has been a legal officer in the Trial Division of the International Criminal Court and a research fellow at Military Law Section of the Netherlands Defence Academy. Prior to that Rogier worked, inter alia, on several war crime cases and the first Dutch genocide case at the National Prosecutor’s Office of the Netherlands, at the ICTY and the Netherlands Red Cross.

Impeding humanitarian access and the starving of civilians is prohibited under international humanitarian law (IHL) in times of both international and non-international armed conflicts. Such conduct is criminalised under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) but only when committed during an international armed conflict. Contemporary conflicts, such as that in Syria, show that this is a problematic omission.

In his talk Mr Bartels will reflect on the general challenges of prosecuting and adjudicating alleged violations of IHL, with a special focus on criminal responsibility for the denial of humanitarian access during armed conflicts. © UNICEF Iraq/2016/Khuzaie No advance booking is necessary.

For further information, please contact Dr Agnieszka Jachec-Neale. For more news and updates from the international law team at Exeter Law School, please follow us on @ExeterILF