Class notes of Humanitarian and Security Law from a European Perspective
Announcement:
Welcome to the course Humanitarian and Security Law from a European Perspective. The first
lecture will take place on Thursday 25 September 2025, from 8 to 11 am in room DV3 01.07, and we
look forward to welcoming you in class.
Course schedule
You can find the course schedule under ‘Course Documents’ on Toledo/Ultra. Do check the course
schedule regularly as it might be subject to small changes.
Course materials
The course materials for the course include:
· Handbook: J Wouters, P De Man and N Verlinden (eds), Armed Conflicts and the Law (Antwerp,
Intersentia, 2016).
· Sourcebook: containing relevant international legal instruments, case law and policy
documents.
· Slides + additional reading material made available via Toledo.
The handbook and the sourcebook will be available through the VRG Cursusdienst. Please note that
we will also make the sourcebook available through Toledo ‘Course Documents’, in pdf version.
However, you are asked to purchase the printed version as soon as possible through VRG,
considering that only these printed versions can be used in the exam.
Also remember to regularly check this Toledo page as specific materials will be made available
before each lecture, including the powerpoint presentations that will be used.
Lectures
We expect students to attend lectures in-person. As a general rule, lectures will not be recorded.
We count on your cooperation and we are sure that together we will make this academic year a
very successful one.
1
,Class 1– 25/9/2025: Introduction to the course;
patterns of armed conflict and international legal
responses thereto
Reading: Chapter 1. À la guerre comme à la guerre
Introduction to the course
Slide 2
- The majority of these wars are internal conflicts (=niacs) so not
international armed conflicts
- International conflicts are regulated by the Geneva Conventions, but
internal conflicts are not regulated that well, because states will consider
this as an internal/state matter.
- Failed states = states without (a functioning) central government
- Should cyber attacks be considered as a coventional armed atack that
could result in the right to defence?
Patterns of armed conflict and international legal responses
thereto
Slide 8 – what is war?
- War has an organised element
- War is considered a big ’event’, so an isolated incident would not be
considered as war
- Declarations of war were used in the past; this was also an element that
would hold back a state and let it think of starting a war
- The Briand-Kellogg Pact was a prohibition of war as an instrument of
foreign policy
- Non-international armed conflict = civil war
Slide 9 – why war?
- Secession = withdrawing formally from membership of a federation or
body, especially a political state
- Sectarian = concerning or arising from membership of a particular
religious or political group, or from divisions between such groups
- Ethnic = of or belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of
people who share a common cultural background or descent
Slide 14 – patterns of war over time
- Concert of Europe:
o This was a general agreement between the great powers of the 19th-
century Europe to maintain the European balance of power, political
boundaries and spheres of influence
o Never a perfect unity and subject to disputes, the Concert was an
extended period of relative peace and stability in Europe following
the Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars which
has consumed the continent since the 1790s
2
, o => balancing of powers and ad hoc diplomatic discussions when
needed
Slide 15
- Crimean war (October 1853–February 1856): war fought mainly on
the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French,
and Ottoman Turkish, with support from January 1855 by the army
of Sardinia-Piedmont. The war arose from the conflict of great powers in
the Middle East and was more directly caused by Russian demands to
exercise protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan.
Another major factor was the dispute between Russia and France over the
privileges of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in the
holy places in Palestine.
- Battle of Solferino:
o The Battle of Solferino (June 24, 1859) was the final major clash of
the Second War of Italian Independence, fought in Lombardy
between Austrian and Franco-Piedmontese forces. The battle,
marked by confusion and heavy casualties on both sides, ended
with a Franco-Piedmontese victory that led to the annexation of
most of Lombardy by Sardinia-Piedmont, advancing Italian
unification. The immense bloodshed—around 40,000 total casualties
—prompted Napoleon III to seek a truce with Austria and inspired
Henri Dunant to found the International Red Cross.
- US Civil war:
o The Civil War is the central event in America's historical
consciousness. While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the
United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 determined what kind of
nation it would be. The war resolved two fundamental questions left
unresolved by the revolution: whether the United States was to be a
dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or an indivisible nation
with a sovereign national government; and whether this nation,
born of a declaration that all men were created with an equal right
to liberty, would continue to exist as the largest slaveholding
country in the world.
o Northern victory in the war preserved the United States as one
nation and ended the institution of slavery that had divided the
country from its beginning. But these achievements came at the
cost of 625,000 lives--nearly as many American soldiers as died in
all the other wars in which this country has fought combined. The
American Civil War was the largest and most destructive conflict in
the Western world between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815
and the onset of World War I in 1914.
Slide 16
- Humanitarian law gives a licence to kill to countries
Slide 17
- The Geneva conventions focused on protection of persons
- The Hague were rules on how to conduct during war
3
, Slide 18
- There never came a third conference because of WWI
- There was a problem with the ‘si omnes’ clause: it could only be used if all
the warring parties had subscribed these rules
Slide 19
- The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As
the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war
between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in
the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the war.
- The League of Nations was the first worldwide intergovernmental
organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.[2] It
was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that
ended the First World War. The main organisation ceased operations on 18
April 1946 when many of its components were relocated into the
new United Nations (UN) which was created in the aftermath of
the Second World War. As the template for modern global governance, the
League profoundly shaped the modern world.
Slide 22
- In law, the principle of aut dedere aut judicare (Latin for
"either extradite or prosecute") refers to the legal
obligation of states under public international law to prosecute persons
who commit serious international crimes where no other state has
requested extradition.
Slide 23
- The Nuremberg principles are a set of guidelines for determining what
constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International
Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles
underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World
War II.
- The Genocide Convention was conceived largely in response to World
War II, which saw atrocities such as the Holocaust that lacked an adequate
description or legal definition. Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who
had coined the term genocide in 1944 to describe Nazi policies in
occupied Europe and the Armenian genocide, campaigned for its
recognition as a crime under international law.[3] Lemkin also
linked colonialism with genocide, mentioning colonial genocides outside of
Europe in his writings.[4] In a 1946 resolution, the General Assembly
recognized genocide as an international crime and called for the creation
of a binding treaty to prevent and punish its perpetration.[5] Subsequent
discussions and negotiations among UN member states resulted in the
CPPCG.
Slide 24
4
Announcement:
Welcome to the course Humanitarian and Security Law from a European Perspective. The first
lecture will take place on Thursday 25 September 2025, from 8 to 11 am in room DV3 01.07, and we
look forward to welcoming you in class.
Course schedule
You can find the course schedule under ‘Course Documents’ on Toledo/Ultra. Do check the course
schedule regularly as it might be subject to small changes.
Course materials
The course materials for the course include:
· Handbook: J Wouters, P De Man and N Verlinden (eds), Armed Conflicts and the Law (Antwerp,
Intersentia, 2016).
· Sourcebook: containing relevant international legal instruments, case law and policy
documents.
· Slides + additional reading material made available via Toledo.
The handbook and the sourcebook will be available through the VRG Cursusdienst. Please note that
we will also make the sourcebook available through Toledo ‘Course Documents’, in pdf version.
However, you are asked to purchase the printed version as soon as possible through VRG,
considering that only these printed versions can be used in the exam.
Also remember to regularly check this Toledo page as specific materials will be made available
before each lecture, including the powerpoint presentations that will be used.
Lectures
We expect students to attend lectures in-person. As a general rule, lectures will not be recorded.
We count on your cooperation and we are sure that together we will make this academic year a
very successful one.
1
,Class 1– 25/9/2025: Introduction to the course;
patterns of armed conflict and international legal
responses thereto
Reading: Chapter 1. À la guerre comme à la guerre
Introduction to the course
Slide 2
- The majority of these wars are internal conflicts (=niacs) so not
international armed conflicts
- International conflicts are regulated by the Geneva Conventions, but
internal conflicts are not regulated that well, because states will consider
this as an internal/state matter.
- Failed states = states without (a functioning) central government
- Should cyber attacks be considered as a coventional armed atack that
could result in the right to defence?
Patterns of armed conflict and international legal responses
thereto
Slide 8 – what is war?
- War has an organised element
- War is considered a big ’event’, so an isolated incident would not be
considered as war
- Declarations of war were used in the past; this was also an element that
would hold back a state and let it think of starting a war
- The Briand-Kellogg Pact was a prohibition of war as an instrument of
foreign policy
- Non-international armed conflict = civil war
Slide 9 – why war?
- Secession = withdrawing formally from membership of a federation or
body, especially a political state
- Sectarian = concerning or arising from membership of a particular
religious or political group, or from divisions between such groups
- Ethnic = of or belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of
people who share a common cultural background or descent
Slide 14 – patterns of war over time
- Concert of Europe:
o This was a general agreement between the great powers of the 19th-
century Europe to maintain the European balance of power, political
boundaries and spheres of influence
o Never a perfect unity and subject to disputes, the Concert was an
extended period of relative peace and stability in Europe following
the Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars which
has consumed the continent since the 1790s
2
, o => balancing of powers and ad hoc diplomatic discussions when
needed
Slide 15
- Crimean war (October 1853–February 1856): war fought mainly on
the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French,
and Ottoman Turkish, with support from January 1855 by the army
of Sardinia-Piedmont. The war arose from the conflict of great powers in
the Middle East and was more directly caused by Russian demands to
exercise protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan.
Another major factor was the dispute between Russia and France over the
privileges of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in the
holy places in Palestine.
- Battle of Solferino:
o The Battle of Solferino (June 24, 1859) was the final major clash of
the Second War of Italian Independence, fought in Lombardy
between Austrian and Franco-Piedmontese forces. The battle,
marked by confusion and heavy casualties on both sides, ended
with a Franco-Piedmontese victory that led to the annexation of
most of Lombardy by Sardinia-Piedmont, advancing Italian
unification. The immense bloodshed—around 40,000 total casualties
—prompted Napoleon III to seek a truce with Austria and inspired
Henri Dunant to found the International Red Cross.
- US Civil war:
o The Civil War is the central event in America's historical
consciousness. While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the
United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 determined what kind of
nation it would be. The war resolved two fundamental questions left
unresolved by the revolution: whether the United States was to be a
dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or an indivisible nation
with a sovereign national government; and whether this nation,
born of a declaration that all men were created with an equal right
to liberty, would continue to exist as the largest slaveholding
country in the world.
o Northern victory in the war preserved the United States as one
nation and ended the institution of slavery that had divided the
country from its beginning. But these achievements came at the
cost of 625,000 lives--nearly as many American soldiers as died in
all the other wars in which this country has fought combined. The
American Civil War was the largest and most destructive conflict in
the Western world between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815
and the onset of World War I in 1914.
Slide 16
- Humanitarian law gives a licence to kill to countries
Slide 17
- The Geneva conventions focused on protection of persons
- The Hague were rules on how to conduct during war
3
, Slide 18
- There never came a third conference because of WWI
- There was a problem with the ‘si omnes’ clause: it could only be used if all
the warring parties had subscribed these rules
Slide 19
- The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As
the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war
between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in
the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the war.
- The League of Nations was the first worldwide intergovernmental
organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.[2] It
was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that
ended the First World War. The main organisation ceased operations on 18
April 1946 when many of its components were relocated into the
new United Nations (UN) which was created in the aftermath of
the Second World War. As the template for modern global governance, the
League profoundly shaped the modern world.
Slide 22
- In law, the principle of aut dedere aut judicare (Latin for
"either extradite or prosecute") refers to the legal
obligation of states under public international law to prosecute persons
who commit serious international crimes where no other state has
requested extradition.
Slide 23
- The Nuremberg principles are a set of guidelines for determining what
constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International
Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles
underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World
War II.
- The Genocide Convention was conceived largely in response to World
War II, which saw atrocities such as the Holocaust that lacked an adequate
description or legal definition. Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who
had coined the term genocide in 1944 to describe Nazi policies in
occupied Europe and the Armenian genocide, campaigned for its
recognition as a crime under international law.[3] Lemkin also
linked colonialism with genocide, mentioning colonial genocides outside of
Europe in his writings.[4] In a 1946 resolution, the General Assembly
recognized genocide as an international crime and called for the creation
of a binding treaty to prevent and punish its perpetration.[5] Subsequent
discussions and negotiations among UN member states resulted in the
CPPCG.
Slide 24
4
