Richard Overy is Professor of History at the University of Exeter and the author of more than twenty-five books on the age of the World Wars and European dictatorship, including The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Airpower has been used in armed conflicts since World War I. Aircraft have been deployed in support of the army on the ground and the navy on the surface. However, the twentieth century, with two World Wars, has also seen aerial bombardment of cities that fell outside the traditional use of airpower. During World War II, as part of the ideology of “total war”, cities were deliberately selected as targets of such attacks with the purpose of undermining the morale of the enemy's population and “winning the war”. Nowadays, although the deliberate bombing of entire cities is prohibited, it is still believed that aerial bombardment can produce certain political dividends for belligerents. In this interview, Richard Overy provides a historical perspective on the evolution of aerial bombardment since the World Wars, and puts in context the use of airpower in contemporary armed conflicts.

To understand how war is perceived and how it has evolved over time, we must first choose the right agent to study: one that is at once involved in the bellicosity, and yet keeps its distance. Such an agent will be better placed to maintain an objective and rational view of developments. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) would seem to fit the bill. As a humanitarian organization that has been working with the victims of armed conflict for more than 153 years, the ICRC has plenty of experience of war, yet it preserves its ability to interpret critically in its capacity as non-belligerent. It is therefore in a position to grasp the evolution of mankind's oldest activity over one and a half centuries – a period during which warfare has undergone incredible and deadly transformations in conjunction with technological breakthroughs and the rise of extremist political ideologies. On top of this, the ICRC was itself, in its early days, made up of people who had experienced war in one way or another. Of the five members who decided to found the organization in February 1863, three had personally experienced armed violence to varying degrees. This fact also made the nascent organization uniquely entitled to voice its views on a subject of which it had empirical experience.

Although the South African War was a colonial war, it aroused great interest abroad as a test of international morality. Both the Boer republics were signatories to the Geneva Convention of 1864, as was Britain, but the resources of these small countries were limited, for their populations were small and, before the discovery of gold in 1884, government revenues were trifling. It was some time before they could put even the most rudimentary organization in place. In Europe, public support from pro-Boers enabled National Red Cross Societies from such countries as the Netherlands, France, Germany, Russia and Belgium to send ambulances and medical aid to the Boers. The British military spurned such aid, but the tide of public opinion and the hospitals that the aid provided laid the foundations for similar voluntary aid in the First World War. Until the fall of Pretoria in June 1900, the war had taken the conventional course of pitched battles and sieges. Although the capitals of both the Boer republics had fallen to the British by June 1900, the Boer leaders decided to continue the conflict. The Boer military system, based on locally recruited, compulsory commando service, was ideally suited to guerrilla warfare, and it was another two years before the Boers finally surrendered. During this period of conflict, about 30,000 farms were burnt and the country was reduced to a wasteland. Women and children, black and white, were installed in camps which were initially ill-conceived and badly managed, giving rise to high mortality, especially of the children. As the scandal of the camps became known, European humanitarian aid shifted to the provision of comforts for women and children. While the more formal aid organizations, initiated by men, preferred to raise funds for post-war reconstruction, charitable relief for the camps was often provided by informal women's organizations. These ranged from church groups to personal friends of the Boers, to women who wished to be associated with the work of their menfolk.

The Great War was globalized and totalized1 by the inclusion of colonial and newly independent people from all over the world and of civilians, old people, women and children. The European war became a laboratory for all the suffering of the century, from the extermination of the Armenians to the refugee crisis, the internments, and the unending modernization of warfare.

The Battle of the Dardanelles is one of the key episodes of World War I on the Ottoman front between the British, the French, the Australians and New Zealanders on the one side, and the Ottoman army under German command on the other. Immediately after the Great War, the former belligerents engaged in another war, which protracts up until the present day: allegations of violations of the rules of war are mutually addressed, in order to become a salient element of political propaganda. Through the analysis of the major controversial issues (use of dum-dum bullets and asphyxiating gases, attacks on non-military objects and sites, treatment of prisoners of war) and the study of various sources (official documents, correspondence and reports issued by belligerent forces, memoirs of Dardanelles’ veterans, ICRC reports) this article scrutinizes two crucial questions. Were the rules of war taken seriously on the battlefield? Was the law instrumentalized by the belligerents?

The Great War ushered in a new era of long-distance combat. For the first time, weapons with a very long range were massively deployed, in previously unheard-of places: under the sea and in the air. Stealth fighting also included espionage and propaganda, now orchestrated on a global scale. In reaction to the carnage in the trenches, a degree of moral rehabilitation came to be conferred on the weapons initially associated with a “cowards’ war”. This in turn encouraged experimentation with the new, unmanned technology that would lead to the first prototypes of guided munitions and drones.

This article provides insight into how, during the First World War, the ICRC handled the oversight of the respect of the 1906 Convention on the Wounded and Sick and the 1907 Hague Convention on Maritime Warfare, steadfastly working to uphold the law. It examines the ICRC's view on the applicability of the Conventions, describes its handling of accusations of violations of international humanitarian law and, finally, shows how the ICRC engaged in a legal dialogue with States on the interpretation of various provisions in the 1906 Convention.

This article is a historical examination of the use of photography in the informational and fundraising strategies of humanitarian organizations. Drawing on archival research and recent scholarship, it shows that the figure of the dead or suffering child has been a centrepiece of humanitarian campaigns for over a century and suggests that in earlier eras too, such photos, under certain conditions, could “go viral” and achieve iconic status. Opening with last year's photo campaign involving the case of 3-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, whose body washed up on a Turkish beach near Bodrum in early September 2015, the article draws on select historical examples to explore continuities and ruptures in the narrative framing and emotional address of photos depicting dead or suffering children, and in the ethically and politically charged decisions by NGO actors and the media to publish and distribute such images. We propose that today, as in the past, the relationship between media and humanitarian NGOs remains symbiotic despite contemporary claims about the revolutionary role of new visual technologies and social media.

Advances in military technology have led many, including the developers of such technology, to propose new regulation. International lawyers have extensively examined the adequacy of the existing law to address emerging technology, but they have devoted relatively little attention in these analyses to the prior development of the law as a result of, or despite, technological change. This essay highlights two challenges that those wishing to undertake such an exercise might encounter. The first of these is the general paucity of serious engagement with the history of international law applicable in armed conflicts and the perpetuation of a particular “origin myth” of international humanitarian law. The second challenge has to do with the controversies about the impact of technology on society in general, and the impact of military technology on warfare in particular. Nevertheless, the essay concludes by pointing towards some of the insight that might be gained from a more history-conscious analysis of the relationship between technology and law in the military context.

How do the dynamics of contemporary armed conflict shape, and constrain, humanitarian action? Is the international humanitarian “system”1 really at breaking point, as is often claimed? Or will it adapt to the changing realities not just of warfare but of global geopolitical shifts – as it has done repeatedly in the past – and evolve into something different? By way of response, the first part of this article offers a snapshot of today's armed conflicts and other situations of violence, focusing initially on the trends and features apparent in the Syrian conflict – which has in many ways come to define twenty-first-century warfare – and moving on to other countries and regions, many of which share at least some of these features, albeit in varying degrees. It considers the humanitarian consequences of today's armed conflicts and other situations of violence, and the implications for humanitarian response – which, at least on an international level, is indeed facing a watershed. The second part aims to show that even a glance back at key aspects of the evolution of humanitarian action over the past century – largely in response to the evolving nature of warfare and the developing international system – will remind us of quite radical changes in the face of major upheavals and challenges, not all of them dissimilar to those of today. The third part suggests that in today's global environment, international humanitarian response will continue to evolve and ultimately take on a different shape: one that reflects the changing nature of conflict and the geopolitical power shifts that go with it. With the rise of the global South, and the increasing recognition of the importance of local actors to humanitarian action, particular attention is given to the evolving relationship between local and international actors. In conclusion, the article reiterates some of the main reasons why humanitarian action – and international humanitarian actors in particular – will likely continue to adapt (albeit with varying degrees of success) to a changing world.

Since their publication in 1950s and 1980s, respectively, the Commentaries on the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 have become a major reference for the application and interpretation of these treaties. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), together with a team of renowned experts, is currently updating these Commentaries in order to document developments and provide up-to-date interpretations. The work on the first updated Commentary, the Commentary on the First Geneva Convention relating to the protection of the wounded and sick in the armed forces, has already been finalized. This article provides an overview of the methodology and process of the update and summarizes the main evolutions in the interpretation of the treaty norms reflected in the updated Commentary.

This article looks at the legal position of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on situations in which a State, a coalition of States or an international or regional organization intervenes in a pre-existing armed conflict, either giving support to one of the parties or exercising control over a non-State armed group party to the armed conflict (hereafter “non-State party”). For the purposes of this article, foreign intervention is considered to be a form of “co-belligerency” of such a degree that it makes the intervening power a party to the armed conflict. Situations in which there is no objective link between the foreign intervention in the territory of a third State and a pre-existing armed conflict in that same territory are therefore excluded from the scope of this article.

The aim of this article is to describe how the ICRC determines the applicability of international humanitarian law to such situations, based on the existing law and an approach that examines each bilateral relationship between belligerents separately.

The article also explains why the ICRC abandons the use of the term “internationalized internal armed conflict”, which is misleading in that it suggests that only the law of international armed conflict applies. The ICRC is therefore using new terminology for the legal classification of such situations; this change is intended to align the terminology used with the realities of the applicable law.

In war, individuals are vulnerable not only physically but also in terms of their cultural identity, and the obliteration of cultural heritage often becomes a central issue. This is particularly the case in armed conflicts with an ethnic, cultural or religious character. In some regions, cultural heritage consists more of monuments and objects; it is a “tangible” heritage, mostly protected by the law of armed conflict. Elsewhere, where structures are impermanent, cultural heritage is mainly expressed through orality, gestures, rituals, music and other forms of expression that individuals create using various media and instruments. Such heritage is mainly “intangible”. This essay aims to show that cultural heritage is both tangible and intangible, and that the law which protects such heritage is not limited to the law of armed conflict. Cultural heritage also benefits from the protection of other applicable instruments, such as human rights treaties and the UNESCO cultural heritage conventions.

In the post-9/11 era, the label “asymmetric wars” has often been used to question the relevance of certain aspects of international humanitarian law (IHL); to push for redefining the combatant/civilian distinction; and to try to reverse accepted norms such as the bans on torture and assassination. In this piece, we focused on legal and policy discussions in the United States and Israel because they better illustrate the dynamics of State-led “norm entrepreneurship”, or the attempt to propose opposing or modified norms as a revision of IHL. We argue that although these developments are to be taken seriously, they have not weakened the normative power of IHL or made it passé. On the contrary, they have made it more relevant than ever. IHL is not just a complex (and increasingly sophisticated) branch of law detached from reality. Rather, it is the embodiment of widely shared principles of morality and ethics, and stands as a normative “guardian” against processes of moral disengagement that make torture and the acceptance of civilian deaths more palatable.

States party to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms that engage in military operations abroad face an increased risk to be held responsible for violations of the Convention, given the relatively recent case law adopted by the European Court of Human Rights. This article examines some of the issues raised by the concurrent applicability of international humanitarian law and European human rights law. It also seeks to identify ways to reconcile these two different, but not incompatible, branches of international law.

This article identifies five factors that will shape the legal implications of the use of autonomous military systems. It contends that the systems which present legal challenges are those programmed to “make decisions” that are regulated by law. In so doing, they transfer control of, and responsibility for, those decisions away from those who have been traditionally seen as decision-makers to persons responsible for developing and deploying the system. The article also suggests that there may be limits to the extent to which the rules of international humanitarian law can appropriately regulate the altered relationship between soldiers and their increasingly autonomous weapon systems.

To what extent do the ways in which we anticipate threats, analyze their possible consequences and determine ways to mitigate them explain the causes of warfare in the future? This article – though never attempting to predict – poses plausible causes of future wars that may stem from transformative change over the next two decades. In asking the question “Are we ready?” to deal with such wars, the answer is framed in terms of the interrelationship between the prospect of profound change, emerging tensions, unprecedented violence and organizational capacities to deal with complexity and uncertainty. To be prepared to deal with the prospect of future wars, relevant organizations have to be more anticipatory and adaptive, while at the same time looking for new ways to engage the wider international community. The article concludes with a set of recommendations intended to meet such organizational challenges – with the aspiration that the question “Are we ready?” can be answered more affirmatively in the future.