Cultural heritage rests on imaginings of a shared humanity transcending national dividing lines. However, cultural heritage sites are frequently targeted in war. In this article I show that the politics of cultural protection is marked by tensions and contestations. A key argument is that the protection of cultural heritage in armed conflict is a militarised practice that informed by notions of protection that are broadly western-centred, masculinised. Therefore, I suggest they are insensitive to the gendered and colonial power relations that undergird the protection of cultural property. Informed by critical heritage studies, cosmopolitanism, and feminist IR scholarship, I elucidate the claims of this article through a feminist narrative analysis of the protection. I identify what is said and what is silenced in heritage protection narratives. First, I focus on the wider storytelling that surrounds heritage protection, unpacking the ethical, gendered, and colonial assumptions employed. Second, I turn to the narration of military protection in the UNESCO military manual. attending to its ethical underpinnings, protection logics, and privileging of distinctively western military knowledge. I conclude by calling for a more nuanced approach to cultural protection.

Interest in the use of chatbots powered by large language models (LLMs) to support women and girls in conflicts and humanitarian crises, including survivors of gender-based violence (GBV), appears to be increasing. Chatbots could offer a last-resort solution for GBV survivors who are unable or unwilling to access relevant information and support in a safe and timely manner. With the right investment and guard-rails, chatbots might also help treat some symptoms related to mental health and psychosocial conditions, extending mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) to crisis-affected communities. However, the use of chatbots can also increase risks for individual users – for example, generating unintended harms when a chatbot hallucinates or produces errors. In this paper, we critically examine the opportunities and limitations of using LLM-powered chatbots1 that provide direct care and support to women and girls in conflicts and humanitarian crises, with a specific focus on GBV survivors. We find some evidence in the global North to suggest that the use of chatbots may reduce self-reported feelings of loneliness for some individuals, but we find less evidence on the role and effectiveness of chatbots in crisis counselling and treating depression, post-traumatic or somatic symptomology, particularly as it relates to GBV in emergencies or other traumatic events that occur in armed conflicts and humanitarian crises. Drawing on key expert interviews as well as evidence and research from adjacent scholarship – such as feminist AI, trauma treatment, GBV, and MHPSS in conflicts and emergencies – we conclude that the potential benefits of GBV-related, AI-enabled talk therapy chatbots do not yet outweigh their risks, particularly when deployed in high-stakes scenarios and contexts such as armed conflicts and humanitarian crises.

Guided by interviews with key protagonists and extensive archival research, this article reinterprets the escalation of the Colombian armed conflict during the critical period of the 1990s. It rejects conventional characterisations of the war as an ‘internal conflict’ and challenges dominant approaches based on state weakness and economic opportunity. Instead, the article situates the FARC’s rapid expansion against the background of the international political economy, linking the conflict’s escalation to changing social relations of production. Grounded in historical materialism, and particularly drawing on the concepts of uneven and combined development, passive revolution, crisis of authority, and war of movement, the article explains how the Colombian state’s reintegration into global capitalism deepened social fragmentation, displaced subaltern populations, generated new terrains of resistance, and provoked a spreading crisis of authority that the FARC strategically exploited. It is argued that the FARC’s expansion was not a symptom of criminal degeneration but a strategic political response enabled by Colombia’s passive revolutionary transformation within the uneven and combined dynamics of global capitalism. The article contributes to broader debates in security, international political economy, global development, historical sociology, and regional studies, inviting scholars to identify the underlying but not immediately visible dynamics shaping conflict and peace.

Teachers in conflict-affected regions face chronic stress and trauma exposure, compromising their mental health and professional identity. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the “Conmigo, Contigo, Con Todo” (3Cs) programme in improving resilience, compassion and prosocial behaviours among Afro-Colombian teachers in Tumaco, Colombia, through a mixed-methods cluster-randomised controlled trial. Thirty-two teachers from eight schools were randomised into intervention (n = 28) and control (n = 4) groups. Quantitative outcomes were assessed at baseline, post-intervention and follow-up using validated scales for resilience (CD-RISC), PTSD symptoms (PCL-C), anxiety, depression, compassion (ECOM) and prosocial behaviour (PPB). Qualitative data were collected through focus groups and analysed thematically. Resilience improved from baseline to follow-up (Hedges’ g = 0.23, small effect). PTSD symptoms declined substantially post-intervention (Hedges’ g = 0.98, large effect), with partial relapse at follow-up. Anxiety decreased initially but increased over time. Compassion and prosociality remained stable. Qualitative findings revealed perceived improvements in emotion regulation and compassion, although the 94% female sample may influence results. This exploratory study provides preliminary evidence that culturally adapted, school-based interventions may improve resilience and reduce trauma-related symptoms among teachers in high-adversity settings, although findings are limited by small sample size and group imbalance. Larger-scale replication with sustained reinforcement strategies is warranted.

Armed conflicts create severe risks to human security, including food insecurity, often in contexts where state-based regulation is compromised. This paper examines how private actors – specifically food retailers in Ukraine – have become crucial de facto regulators in managing this risk during the war. We ask: in a regulatory vacuum, how do social expectations and corporate risk management practices shape the governance of essential goods? Drawing on thirty-six semi-structured interviews with Ukrainian residents and a thematic content analysis of 280 public social media posts and comments (Feb 2022 – Dec 2024), we investigate how social expectations function as a form of social regulation, shaping corporate conduct. We find that stakeholders expect companies not only to mitigate their own operational impacts but also to actively address the negative human rights consequences of the conflict itself. Based on these findings, we propose an empirically grounded model of “heightened human rights due diligence” (hHRDD) as an adaptive risk regulation framework. This model offers critical policy guidance for the implementation of instruments like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), particularly for defining corporate responsibilities in conflict-affected and high-risk areas.

Ideology is a powerful tool for parties in armed conflicts, as it provides a source of motivation for combatants to stay in group under difficult circumstances and to perform actions that put them at risk or defy their personal ethical codes. But once in peacetime, besides the effects of past negative intergroup experiences, radical beliefs may become an obstacle to reconciliation and prolong the confrontation in the minds of ex-combatants. An examination of 484 recently decommissioned soldiers and insurgents in Colombia shows how the persistent ideological differences among former enemies help us explain postconflict intergroup bias beyond the effects of wartime victimization. We conclude that addressing the ideological radicalization that prolongs confrontation after armed conflict ceases is fundamental to creating proper conditions for reconciliation, and it offers a viable policy alternative to the much-needed healing from wartime-related trauma.

Florence Anselmo is Head of the Central Tracing Agency and Protection Division at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Between September 2016 and June 2025, she was in charge of the Central Tracing Agency (CTA), leading and coordinating efforts to prevent disappearance, reconnect separated families, bring answers and support to families of missing persons and promote the protection of the dead. For this purpose, she convened on CTA matters across the ICRC and beyond and has overseen the development of a new strategy for Restoring Family Links for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. She is also in charge of the management of protection data.

Florence worked for the ICRC from 2001 until 2007, first as Field Delegate in Colombia, then as Head of Sub-Delegation in Burundi and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. From 2007 until 2016 she worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Jerusalem as protection coordinator, setting up and developing UNRWA’s protection strategy and activities in the West Bank. She holds a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in political sciences from the University of Lausanne.

Dr Pierre Guyomarc’h is Head of Forensics at the ICRC. A forensic anthropologist trained at the University of Bordeaux (MSc 2008, PhD 2011), his research has focused on human identification, medical imaging and craniofacial analysis. He previously worked at the US Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, contributing to the identification of missing service members while advancing innovative forensic methods. Since joining the ICRC in 2014, Pierre has led forensic operations in contexts such as Ukraine, Lebanon and Georgia, and he has overseen programmes from headquarters since 2017. Today, he directs a global team of around 100 experts implementing humanitarian forensic action in conflict and crisis-affected settings worldwide.

When people die in the context of armed conflicts, international humanitarian law (IHL) provides important legal protection for the dead and their families. Overall, it seeks to ensure that the dead are respected and recovered no matter who they were, and that information on them is collected with a view to identification. A key aim of these IHL rules is to uphold the right of families to know the fate of their relatives. Recognizing the inherent difficulties of accounting for those who have gone missing or died, these rules continue to apply even after the end of conflict. This article provides an overview of the IHL obligations protecting the dead in international and non-international armed conflicts, complemented by other bodies of international law. It then focuses on key legal questions arising in contemporary wars and practical implications for warring parties on processes to account for the dead, respect for the deceased and their graves, and the return of human remains to their families. Finally, the article explores issues of practice and key recommendations to drive forward action by States and parties to armed conflict in order to effectively integrate and apply obligations on the ground.

As I pass the 40-year mark of work in cultural heritage and cultural heritage law, I am grateful for the opportunity to reflect on how the field has evolved since the mid-1980s. This reflection acknowledges the contributions of those who influenced the early development of this field and the way their work continues today through the scholarship and activism of their successors. Evolution on the international level was matched with domestic legal accomplishments in the United States—the world’s largest art market—with conclusive recognition of the principle of foreign state ownership to protect archaeological heritage, US ratification of the 1954 Hague Convention, and an expansion of US implementation of the 1970 UNESCO Convention. At the same time, threats to cultural heritage from armed conflict, other forms of violence, and climate-change-induced natural disasters continue, while the field has only started to reckon with the legacies of colonialism and imperialism often embodied in the large public collections in the European former colonial powers and those who purchased cultural objects from them. This article sets out four areas of cultural heritage law in which we have not succeeded sufficiently and the questions that remain for future generations to resolve.

Michael S. Pollanen is a Canadian medical doctor with over twenty years of experience as a forensic pathologist and Professor at the University of Toronto. His main area of expertise is the application of forensic medicine to investigating human rights abuses, with a focus on clinical and autopsy investigations of torture, extrajudicial killing, and death of detainees, and humanitarian action. He is also dedicated to forensic capacity development in resource-limited settings in order to strengthen medico-legal systems. He has consulted for various organizations and is a past president of the International Association of Forensic Sciences. Michael has worked in over twenty countries and has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles.

Judge Roberto Carlos Vidal López is a Lawyer and Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, where he gained a PhD in law. Since 1997 he has been a Professor and Expert Researcher there on human rights, international humanitarian law (IHL), forced migration and internal displacement. He has also studied history.

In addition to his work as a Professor, Judge Vidal López has been a Lecturer at the Universidad del Rosario and a Visiting Researcher at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. He has worked for the Ideas for Peace Foundation, the United Nations in Colombia, the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration, the University Network for Peace, the Ombudsman’s Office of Colombia and the Brookings Institution, a major Washington-based think tank. He has also produced thirty publications, including Truth-Telling and Internal Displacement in Colombia (2012), The Participation of Internally Displaced People in Peace Processes in Colombia (2007) and Derecho global y desplazamiento interno: Creación, uso y desaparición del desplazamiento forzado por la violencia en el derecho contemporáneo (2007).

The United Nations (UN) has operated a longstanding peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), while simultaneously contributing to rule-of-law building and transitional justice processes. Sexual violence is widespread in the DRC including routine allegations against UN peacekeepers. The operation of numerous legal systems and judicial mechanisms in the DRC produces a legally plural environment that is difficult for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence to navigate, and this is especially true for survivors of peacekeeper-perpetrated sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA). In this paper, we explore justice-seeking among SEA survivors in the DRC and the challenges imposed by the complicated jurisdictions and layered legalities pertaining to SEA. Moreover, we argue that, beyond barriers to justice, we see a recession of justice for SEA produced by the United Nations and member states positioning SEA as distinct from other forms of gender-based harms and exacerbated through the legal navigational challenges faced by survivors.

This article analyzes the main investigative and legal challenges addressed by the Acknowledgment Chamber of the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) in Case 07 on recruitment and use of children in the armed conflict. First, it presents a general background on the mandate of the SJP as a special system of justice – the outcome of the 2016 Final Peace Agreement reached between the Colombian government and the former FARC-EP guerrilla group. Second, it outlines how the investigative methodology used in Case 07 addressed challenges related to understanding child recruitment as a complex criminal phenomenon, the identification of those bearing the greatest responsibility, and the approach to the broad scale and scope of the victimization. Finally, the article addresses the main challenges faced by the Chamber in the legal qualification of the criminal patterns identified, and how it resolved three key issues: the determination of the age threshold under which child recruitment constitutes a war crime, the definitions of the international humanitarian law status of protections of individuals within an armed group, and the classification of different forms of gender-based violence as war crimes.

This case note examines the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2022 reparations judgment in Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda, analyzing the Court’s legal reasoning, its evidentiary approach, and the implications for future reparations cases. The 2022 judgment follows the ICJ’s 2005 ruling that found Uganda responsible for violations of international law during its military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Given the failure of negotiations between the parties, the ICJ determined the amount of reparations owed, awarding a global sum of $325 million – substantially lower than the DRC’s claim. The case addresses complex legal and evidentiary questions, including the causal link between Uganda’s wrongful acts and the damages claimed, the standard and burden of proof for reparations, and categorizing harm. The Court examined four heads of damage, which were damage to persons, damage to property, damage to natural resources and macroeconomic damage, dismissing the latter due to insufficient proof of causation. A key aspect of the judgment was the ICJ’s adoption of a global sum approach – an uncommon approach in the Court’s practice. This case note assesses the lack of clear reasoning and methodology for determining the exact amount awarded for each head of damage.

Additionally, the ICJ’s over-reliance on United Nations reports and its application of standards of proof raise concerns about consistency and clarity in reparations proceedings. This case sets a precedent for State responsibility in mass violations of international law but highlights challenges in quantifying harm and ensuring equitable reparations. The Court’s reasoning and methods in the case may influence future cases involving State responsibility, armed conflicts, and reparative justice under international law.

Over the past quarter-century, the literature on gender, peace, and security has evolved into a substantial interdisciplinary field. In this line of work, researchers have investigated the interplay between state security and women’s security, or how gender equality at the state level affects the occurrence of international and intranational conflict. The conclusion is that more gender-equal countries are less prone to engage in warfare, pointing toward a link between women’s security and national security. Various indicators have been used to capture gender equality in this literature, such as the representation of women in parliamentary roles, the proportion of women participating in the labor force, and school enrollment among girls relative to boys.