Katharine Fortin blogs on bottom up approaches when working on compliance issues in protracted armed conflicts

Katharine Fortin is Assistant Professor in Human Rights Law and Public International Law at Utrecht University. She is in expert on armed groups and international law.

After a recent symposium, she wrote a blog for opiniojuris.org on the need for more bottom up approaches when working on compliance issues in protracted armed conflicts.

Most of the literature studying what makes actors comply with international humanitarian law (IHL) has had a ‘top-down’ perspective, in that it takes the duty-bearers (i.e. parties to the armed conflict) as its starting point. The focus of much of this literature has been on how external interlocutors can persuade armed groups and States to comply with IHL. The purpose of this post is to share some preliminary research on ‘bottom up’ approaches to the legal framework. It explores the possibility of civilian communities playing a role in efforts to ensure that parties to an armed conflict comply with the applicable framework.