Ongoing PhD Research

The Necessity of a Conversation between the Administration and the Individual – The Relevance of Procedure to International Human Rights

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)
Professor Dr. Wolfram Cremer (Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum

Administrative procedure is often perceived as a nuisance by the two sides involved: by individuals seeking an action, service or permission from the state as well as by members of the administration wanting to pursue an action against an individual or refusing to act in her favor. Both sides may view administrative procedure as an unwelcome hurdle on their way to reach their objectives. This perception, however, clouds the value and importance of administrative procedure for the individual in modern legal systems. It is not an end in itself but protects the individual against arbitrary state action.

This PhD project seeks to answer the question whether the effective implementation of international human rights law requires administrative procedures. By enriching traditional legal analysis with insights from other disciplines, the project aims at a comprehensive evaluation of the potential of a human rights-based argumentation in favor of a conversation between the administration and the individual for the better realisation of international human rights.

The Concept of National Appropriation in International Law: Space Mining between Sovereignty and Property

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum

Funded by:
PhD scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes)
International Realization Budget prize of Ruhr-University’s Research School

“Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” (Art. II, Outer Space Treaty).

At the threshold of a second space age with more private entities than ever at its forefront, the extraction of resources in outer space (space mining) is today far from science fiction. Yet, due to the general nature of rules of international outer space law – a regime in many crucial parts older than the moon landing – a substantial degree of legal uncertainty overshadows the emerging technological possibilities and their potential benefits for humankind. In the context of space mining and its corporate aspirants, a lot of the uncertainty rests in the questions of what exactly characterizes an operation as “national” and which conduct exactly amounts to an “appropriation” of outer space.

In an attempt to reduce some of the legal uncertainty, this PhD project analyzes the concept of national appropriation at the heart of Art. II Outer Space Treaty from a range of perspectives that go beyond outer space law stricto sensu, spanning from other relevant fields of international law like e.g. the law of territorial acquisition, over legal theory and history, to political philosophy. The project will introduce a sovereignty-based theory on what characterizes an act as “national”. Based on this it will examine two issues particularly relevant in the private space age: First, which type of state involvement – if at all – from partnership with to mere legalization of private space mining endeavors, characterizes such private endeavors as “national”. Second, in how far characteristically “national” acts can be emulated by large property holders, like space mining corporations. It will further engage with the concept of “appropriation” informed by, but not limited to, property law considerations. In a final step, the insights gained will be introduced into the interpretation of Art. II Outer Space Treaty to answer the research question, if and how space mining by states and private entities can be permissible under international law.

Resiliente  Stadtentwicklung – Kommunale  Resilienzstrategien  zur  Prävention  und Bewältigung von Herausforderungen, Krisen und Katastrophen  

[Resilient City development – Local resilience strategies for prevention and coping with stresses, crises and disasters]  

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Frank Fiedrich (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Safety Engineering, University of Wuppertal),

Professor Dr.  Dennis Dijkzeul (IFHV and Faculty of Social Sciences, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Safety Engineering, University of Wuppertal

Cities are confronted with a variety of stresses, shocks and changes. Depending on city and circumstances these stresses and shocks range from socio-economic-change, high unemployment, serious housing shortage, lack of social cohesion to natural disasters or cyber-attacks. As an answer to these challenges and a protection strategy, over the last years city planners internationally have begun to develop resilience strategies. The aim of these resilience strategies is the preparation for and prevention of potential shocks and stresses and ensuring the maintenance of business continuity. In participatory negotiating processes potential risks are identified and adaptation, transformation or coping strategies are developed. While a plethora of resilience strategies have recently been developed worldwide, until now no such strategy exists in any German city.

The planning focus here still lies mainly on sustainable, social, integrative or smart city development. This PhD project explores in how far aspects of resilient city development have nevertheless already been included in other applied city development strategies and programmes, but are referred to under different terms. It also addresses the questions which benefits and limitations the resilience approach in city development offers, in which processes resilience strategies are and should be formulated and how resilience can be increased by the promotion of social capital and society empowerment.

Present and Future of Counter-terrorism in the federal security architecture

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum

Dynamic threats from international and national terrorism are putting increasing pressure on the federally organised security architecture of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Islamist attack on Breitscheidplatz in 2016 and the right-wing terrorist attacks in Halle in 2019 and Hanau in 2020 have painfully revealed weaknesses in the security structure. Against this backdrop, calls for reforms from academia, politics and practice are becoming louder and more prominent. Current and future challenges include, in particular, the intensifying international networking of terrorist actors, which leads to dual responsibilities of different states and federal states as well as federal and state authorities. Such dual responsibilities require effective coordination mechanisms and a rapid exchange of information. However, the existing security architecture in Germany sometimes fails to meet these requirements - which can have existential consequences for the security of citizens and the free democratic order.

The dissertation project therefore evaluates and develops reform options for the federal security architecture that conform to the constitution and are intended to efficiently meet the current challenges. To this end, the constitutional and EU legal framework conditions for the state's guarantee of security are elaborated. The multifunctionality of fundamental rights, which establish both individual rights of defence and the state's duty to protect, as well as the federal distribution of competences are of particular importance. The doctoral project examines in detail which deficits of the federal security architecture need to be remedied in order to subsequently evaluate existing demands for legislative intervention in terms of their constitutional admissibility and to develop its own reform proposals.

Diplomatic Asylum (working title)

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum

Sending states are eligible to widespread privileges in respect to their missions and diplomats abroad in terms of inviolabilities and immunities. Assange is only one example of a range of cases in which those privileges have been used ever since in a highly controversial way: diplomatic asylum. Outside Latin America this concept has never reached the level of being part of multilateral treaties and is always classified as a breach of the sovereignty of the receiving state. Because of the inviolability of missions the receiving state is never allowed to undertake unauthorized entries to the premises. But there are situations in which a person seeks for immediate protection and where a mission may provide shelter for a couple of time. This raises a deeper analysis of a potential justification of this legal concept in extraordinary situations. The thesis focuses primarily on the implementation of diplomatic asylum in the structure of European human rights law.

Understanding INGOs practices on protection activities for people in need in complex crises (working title)

Supervisors:
To be determined

Enrolled at:
To be determined

Delivering relief supplies and keeping people affected by crises safe are the core tasks of humanitarian action. Yet, there is no common understanding among humanitarian actors what “doing protection” in crises actually means and who is responsible for which aspect of protection. NGO activities vary widely between specific protection projects and integration into programming as a “cross-cutting” theme. The confusion about meaning and the diffusion of responsibility can be linked to challenges of limited accountability towards people in need. 

The research aims to understand what protection measures in practice are and to assess which collective outcomes emerge. By using methods from the spectrum of International Practice Theory, it seeks to make (un)intended consequences of established practices visible. 

A Human Right to Asylum for Children – The Best Interests of the Child in International Migration Law

Supervisors:
Prof. Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr-University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr-University Bochum

Roughly half of the global refugee population are forcibly displaced children. This is a major problem because children are one of the most vulnerable groups, particularly in situations of displacement. They face serious dangers while migrating, including sexual violence, exploitation, and trafficking. Even upon arrival at the destination, children regularly encounter severe problems. They often end up in unlimited administrative detention, without proper information, legal representation, or guardianship. Without external help, children often remain in perilous situations for decades.

Therefore, the aim of this project is to use the universally recognized rights of the child as a framework for a comprehensive right to asylum for forcibly displaced children. The first step is an analysis of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which provides forcibly displaced minors with important protections. In a second step, the legal situation for children at the external borders of the EU will be compared to that in the U.S with a view towards identifying major legal problems. Third, a consultation with actors involved in child migration will reveal practical obstacles and help to identify ways to improve the current legal framework. The overall goal of this project is to provide a detailed analysis of the legal situation of forcibly displaced children and how it can be improved.

Cultural Heritage Preservation and Protection in Human Rights Law

Supervisor:
Professor Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
German-Arab joint PhD programme (Institute of Development Research and Development Policy)
at Ruhr University Bochum, Lebanese American University, and the University of Jordan

The protection of cultural heritage in times of armed conflict and the enforcement thereof is a prominent topic in international law, yet peacetime protection has gained less attention. In peacetime, threats to cultural heritage typically stem from urbanisation, industrialisation, and the increase in international tourism as well as from climate change and pollution. While these threats may manifest themselves more subtly than an overt attack on cultural heritage in an armed conflict, they certainly contribute to its decay, degradation, destruction, and eventual loss. Similarly, intentional attacks on cultural heritage are not confined to armed conflicts and may also occur in peacetime, as deplorably evidenced by the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

The increasing recognition that loss and destruction of cultural heritage entail detrimental repercussions for individuals has become evident in the jurisprudence of inter alia the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court (ICC). In 2016, the ICC pronounced the population of Timbuktu “the direct victims” of the destruction of the city’s heritage in The Prosecutor v. Al Mahdi. The relationship between cultural heritage and human rights law has also been subject of inter alia Human Rights Council Resolutions and the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights’ general comment No. 21 on the right to take part in cultural life. 

Motivated by references to the relationship between cultural heritage and human rights in both cultural heritage law and the human rights system, this PhD project seeks to understand to what extent cultural heritage as a concept and the preservation and protection thereof has emerged in the framework of international human rights law. The PhD project seeks to move beyond using human rights as a rhetoric and questions if human rights law offers a legal basis for preserving and protecting rights relating to cultural heritage.

The application of international standards in federal refugee facilities in Germany.
Qualitative comparative case study about the accommodation and care of refugees with a focus on an organisational perspective.

Supervisor:
Professor Dr. Dennis Dijkzeul (IFHV and Faculty of Social Sciences, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Social Sciences, Ruhr University Bochum

In the summer of 2015, there has been a high increase of refugees coming to Europe and Germany due to the armed conflict in Syria and forced migration and migration from the African and Asian continent. Germany had to deal with a high number of people in need seeking for asylum in Germany. Six years after this event, it is time to observe the handling of this special situation in Germany.

The PhD Project intents to answer the question about the use of normative, organisational and technical standards in the accommodation and care of refugees in federal refugee shelters in Germany. Furthermore, it seeks to answer which factors do influence the integration of international standards in Germany. International standards like the Sphere Project of the Core Humanitarian Standards are often used by international, humanitarian organisations in the context of refugee relief. The use of international standards in Germany is rather unexplored. Due to a qualitative, comparative case study between organisations which are using international standards in Germany and organisations which are using national standards this research question should be further explored.

The Content and Implementation of Shared Responsibility Arising from Violations of Non Refoulement

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)        

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum

The PhD project purports to explore the content and implementation of shared international responsibility arising from violations of non refoulement. More precisely, it seeks to illustrate how the law on the content and implementation of international responsibility, as authoritatively codified and developed by the International Law Commission (‘ILC’) and as built on, novelly interpreted or expanded by highly qualified publicists, accommodates the commission of one or more internationally wrongful acts that contribute to refoulements by multiple international persons. Doing so, it will ultimately assess the efficiency of the existing legal framework to accommodate the particularities of the content and implementation of shared responsibility in the context of non refoulement violations.

The Right to Data Protection in the Context of International Human Rights Law

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum),

Professor Dr. Robin Geiß (Faculty of Law at University of Glasgow and Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum 

The right to data protection is considered a cornerstone of individual rights in the digital era. Although it is not explicitly mentioned in the International Bill of Human Rights, it is enshrined in the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights as well as more and more in national constitutions. Based on the right to data protection, the EU has enacted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which itself is often taken as blueprint by other states.

The PhD project critically analyses and assesses the value of the right to data protection in the context of international human rights law. It especially focuses on its scope vis-à-vis other (potentially new) human rights and predominantly on the relationship to the already recognised right to privacy. The right to data protection is strongly intertwined with other rights, especially with the right to privacy, and often interpreted in an inconsistent and misleading manner. The thesis highlights the unique quality and characteristics of the right to data protection on the global level, hence beyond the national as well as the European spheres.

The Rohingya Crisis and its Regional Response

Supervisor:
Professor Dr. Hans-Joachim Heintze (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE), Ruhr University Bochum

With more than 727,000 Rohingya refugees forcibly driven out of their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, due to the continuing violence and persecution, into neighboring Bangladesh since 25 August 2017 (ISCG, 2018), the discourse on refugee protection becomes increasingly critical. However, in a region where human rights protection is inconsistent and where human rights itself has been argued to be a “Western” concept, human rights violations in the name of national security, are prone to fester. Compared to Europe, Asia, as a region collectively, lacks the necessary legal framework in the refugee protection regime. At the national state level, existing framework is geared towards the protection of the state and national security interests. In fact, many Asian states are void of refugee protection laws all together.

 

In the absence of a workable legal framework for refugee protection, the Bali Process, a non-binding international forum for policy dialogue, established to combat issues of people smuggling, trafficking, and related irregular migration and transnational crime, has become well-placed to discuss possible solutions for the region, despite not having refugee protection issues as part of its core mandate (Kneebone, 2014).

 

This research focusses on how Asia is responding regionally to the Rohingya refugee crisis and whether it is compatible with protecting human rights and achieving human dignity. Through a comparative analysis of the Bali Process and other similar processes geared towards irregular migration which have been adopted worldwide (Budapest Process, ASEM, GFMD, etc.) and involving the participation and cooperation of both state and non-state actors, it aims to unravel the complex intersections between the protection of state interests and matters of internal security, against the protection of human rights and principles thereof in order to gain a better understanding and contribute to the discourse on refugee protection in the region.

 

With regional cooperation being highlighted as a key component to address the crisis, the relevance of this study’s findings takes on a much larger role in the discourse, especially, given the severity of the ongoing humanitarian crisis as well as the regional complexities. Viable long-term “human rights friendly” solutions could only be achieved through a thorough examination and understanding of the region’s capacity, steering away from a western-centric view on the issue.

The ‘Enhanced Human Rights Due Diligence’ of Corporations - Businesses’ Human Rights Obligations in Conflict-Affected Situations

Supervisors:
Prof. Dr. Pierre Thielbörger, M.PP. (Harvard), Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Prof. Dr. David Bilchitz, University of Johannesburg

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr-University Bochum

In our globalised economy, (transnational) business activities are present in every region of the world and engage with individuals and peoples, which can both improve their conditions of living, as well as cause or contribute to human rights abuses. In situations of conflict, the latter can aggregate to especially egregious human rights abuses and in the most severe cases can constitute crimes under international law. Historical and current examples include the crimes of I.G. Farben during the Second World War, the involvement of Shell in the killing of the Ogoni Nine in the Niger Delta, as well as the current criminal investigation into the French company Lafarge for financing and cooperating with the Islamic State.

With the capacities of governments weakened during situations of conflict, the protection of victims cannot rely solely on national regulation. To address these heightened risks, the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) require corporations to exercise an enhanced/heightened human rights due diligence to fulfil their responsibility to respect human rights. At the same time, corporations have a responsibility to respect standards of international humanitarian law and the possibilities to hold corporations (criminally) liable for violations of these standards are growing.

However, 10 years after the endorsement of the UNGP, a substantial degree of legal uncertainty remains regarding the nature, scope and content of ‘enhanced/heightened human rights due diligence’. This PhD project investigates what the notion of ´enhanced/heightened human rights due diligence’ in conflict-affected areas entails, what the relationship to other instruments of international law that regulate business conduct in conflict-affected situations is, and how these regimes can be used to give the notion of ‘enhanced’ `/ ´heightened´ meaning. Finally, the PhD thesis turns towards the question how ‘enhanced’ `/ ´heightened´ human rights due diligence of businesses can be understood vis-à-vis the lowered human rights obligations of states during times of conflict.

Yazidi survivors of ISIS: Strategies, dispositions and resources of social resilience from organized violence to migration in Germany

Supervisors:
Prof. Dr. Ludger Pries ( Faculty of Social Science, Ruhr University Bochum) 

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Social Science, Ruhr-University Bochum

On 3 August 2014, the terrorist organisation identifying as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] conducted organized attacks in the Sinjar region of Iraqi-Kurdistan, with the intent to persecute and eliminate the Yazidi people, an ethnoreligious group residing in the area. The genocide against Yazidis led to the expulsion and exile of approximately 300,000 persons from their homeland while an estimated 6,800, mostly women and children, were kidnapped by ISIS. Most of these abductees were subjected to heinous crimes against humanity including sexual violence, human trafficking and slavery. In response to the mass scale of violence in the region, the German State of Baden-Württemberg launched a Special Quota Humanitarian Program in 2015 called “Schutzbedürftiger Frauen und Kinder aus dem Nordirak.” The program received 1,200 survivors into Germany and provided medical, psychological, and social assistance to them. These survivors, several of whom are the target of this study, are experiencing a protracted limbo. On the one hand, they are experiencing ambivalences of foreign societal and cultural contexts in Germany. On the other hand, they cannot return due to the complete destruction of their villages and loss of their families.

This study focuses on the biographical experiences of these Yazidi women and children before and after migration to Germany and addresses three research questions. The first question examines the group’s strategies and dispositions of social resilience in their experiences and constellations of violence. The second question scrutinizes the organizational, social, and political factors that shaped and reframed the group’s social resilience strategies and dispositions. Considering this target group as subjects capable of agency, the third question analyses their perpetuation of resistance and challenging the victim’s image in exile.

This work draws upon ten months of ethnographic research with twenty-six Yazidi survivors. It included biographical narrative interviews, participant observation, participation in wider ‘Yazidi Community’ events and semi-structured interviews with professional staff of the Special Quota Humanitarian Program. For data analysis, the study applied the Biographical Case Reconstruction (Rosenthal) and the Qualitative Content Analysis method (Mayring).

The active personality/ nationality principle and its limits before the ICC (working title)  

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum),

Prof. Dr. Sabine Swoboda (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum 

It seeks to answer the question whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) would retain jurisdiction over alleged perpetrators if they changed or lost their nationality, usually in cases after they have relocated and find themselves outside the territory of the country of their previous nationality. Art. 12 II lit.b) Rome-Statute states that, the ICC can exercise jurisdiction, when the – accused – perpetrator is a citizen of a member state to the RS.

What if the alleged perpetrator has lost its citizenship before he got prosecuted? Is the ICCs exertion of jurisdiction limited in these cases?

If yes, limits the Rome-Statute and the purpose of the Statute to ensure effective prosecution and preventing impunity by taking measures at the national level, national expatriation legislation of alleged perpetrators?

The study looks at the consequences for the host States and is relevant for the question what such states can do to avoid impunity in cases of mass atrocities.

Local humanitarian Networks and organisational Risk – A comparative case study of international NGOs in South Sudan

Supervisor:
Professor Dr. Dennis Dijkzeul (IFHV and Faculty of Social Sciences, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Institute for Development Research and Development Policy, Ruhr University Bochum

Currently, we can observe two important trends in international humanitarian response: Firstly, humanitarian assistance is often provided in high-risk environments. Secondly, the local networks through which international humanitarian organisations implement their projects are growing, with local actors gaining relevance. Beyond this background, the research project aims to understand how local humanitarian networks influence the organisational risks that are faced by international organisations while implementing their humanitarian projects in volatile environments.

It approaches the topic from a formal network analytical perspective and applies it to the context of South Sudan. Doing so, it conceptualises organisational risks as a form of social capital that is differently distributed, transformed, and accumulated/ reduced throughout the local networks of international organisations in South Sudan. Based on a comparative case study design and using the methods formal network analysis, risk analysis and comparison, it contrasts the structural influences of the individual local networks of three international NGOs.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and the Conceptualisation of New Rights and Rights-Holders in International Law

Supervisor:
Professor Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum

The newly adopted United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) introduces a new category of individual and collective right holders in order to remedy the dire situation of smallholder agriculturalists, including farmers, pastoralists or nomadic communities as well as indigenous peoples.

This PhD project, first, examines peasants as potential (group) holders of human rights, the normative content of these rights as well as their potential implementation, focusing on UNDROP’s Article 17 on the right to land. Although such a right has been referred to as an emerging human right by scholars and human rights activists, it has not yet been the focus of sustained academic research.

This evaluation serves to, in a second step, examine UNDROP’s potential conceptual influence on the existing legal framework of human rights through the prism of land. The research uses land, specifically as it relates to culture and identity, as a connecting factor in illuminating the contested legal relationship between peasants and other agriculturalists, indigenous peoples, and minorities. In this context, it examines whether the turn to rights in international law, in this case through UNDROP, provides opportunities to close normative gaps or exacerbates ambiguities in the framework of vulnerable groups within the heterogeneous populations making up the majority of today’s states.

 International Criminal Accountability in the Deployment of Autonomous Weapons

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Pierre Thielbörger (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)
Professor Dr. Marco Sassòli (Université de Genève)

Enrolled at:
Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum

Autonomy in weapon systems is a rising combination of advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence which allows for increasing machine decisions on the battlefield. This „dehumanization of warfare“ has sparked concerns over human detachment from warfare and a subsequent accountability gap for violations of International Humanitarian Law.

The PhD project critically analyses the notion of an accountability gap and attempts to determine its boundaries and the necessity for new norms under a theoretical legal perspective.

Norm Clusters of Non-State Armed Groups: Mapping and Understanding the Limits of Warfare as Understood by Non-State Armed Groups

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Hans-Joachim Heintze (IFHV and Faculty of Law, Ruhr University Bochum)

Enrolled at:
Institute of Development Research and Development Policy at Ruhr University Bochum

Since the end of the Second World War, there has been a sharp decline in the number of armed conflicts between states (international armed conflicts) and a rise in the number of armed conflicts between one or more states and non-state armed groups (non-international armed conflicts). As seen extensively in scholarship, there are issues in both disseminating and monitoring applicable international humanitarian law to many armed groups, especially those armed groups that do not necessarily have the capacity to engage with international humanitarian law or the international community. However, many armed groups do limit their actions out of perceived obligations to broader ideas of rules of war or political and social considerations. While international law is historically a quite recent development, such rules limiting conduct in warfare have existed throughout history and can be seen long before the modern concept of sovereignty.

The first part of this project dives deeper into the historical and international relations literature to re-conceptualise these rules as norms in the international system, instead of through the more rigid frame of international law. Unlike international humanitarian law, which is created by states and imposed upon non-state armed groups, these norms can be created and changed by all actors involved in the conflict, not just recognised Westphalian states, and are context specific rather than universal.

The second part of this project uses Carla Winston’s model of norm clusters, which provides for a more nuanced understanding of these international norms, to explore what role other armed groups, non-governmental organisations, and the international community have to play in the creation, diffusion, and contestation of norms. Winston posits that norms can be understood through a simple formula: “given (problem A), (ideation B) suggests (behaviour C)”. In this model, the problem, ideation, and behaviour can all be plural, thus creating a cluster of norms of ideas and behaviours, rather than a straight-forward rule to be followed for one given reason. The project uses this structure understand the interplay between the ideations and behaviours that make up norms of warfare for armed groups through a qualitative content analysis of armed group documents. The goal is then to map the behavioural prescriptions espoused by non-state armed groups in the documents they publish and the ideations that inform these guidelines, as well as what external mitigating factors also play a role in the definition of these norms.