Call for Papers – Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law Vol. 24 (2021)
Theme: Cultures of International Humanitarian Law
Academic debates about “universalism versus particularism”, which have dominated much of the critical scholarship in international law, remain relatively underexplored in the field of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). This call for papers is an invitation to investigate IHL’s universalism, either to deconstruct the processes through which IHL is produced, interpreted and applied – be it from doctrinal, theoretical, empirical or historical perspectives – or to question the idea that IHL needs critical deconstruction. Authors are encouraged to identify diverging cultures and the epistemic and interpretive communities – whether academic or institutional – that shape IHL.
Contributions could deal with some of the following questions: How do various actors (states, courts, experts, activists) differ in their approach to doctrine, and why? How do different intellectual and legal traditions and assumptions regarding the theoretical underpinnings of IHL play out in different contexts? How is IHL understood across different communities of knowledge and practice, and what role do different forms of power play in these understandings? Has there been a doctrinal focus on conflicts between Western states and organized armed groups which tends to favour the interests of Western states? Does this focus make mainstream IHL blind to other issues that arise in other regional and national contexts, and involve other actors? How do current geopolitical shifts affect these phenomena and the interpretation of IHL nationally, regionally or globally?
Volume 24 offers international humanitarian lawyers the opportunity to reflect on what IHL scholarship may have excluded from its scope of analysis, and to bring to light underexplored variation, cases, and approaches to the field.
Interested authors should send an abstract of 500 words to the Managing Editor of the Yearbook, Dr. Rebecca Mignot-Mahdavi ([email protected]) by 1 June 2021. This abstract should include (i) a working title; (ii) your main research questions and hypotheses; (iii) what gap your analysis/argument would fill in the literature; (iv) the provisional structure of your reflections.
Authors of selected abstracts will be notified by 1 July 2021, and the deadline for the submission of final papers, which should be no longer than 13,000 words (including footnotes) is 15 November 2021. Submitted articles should conform to the YIHL guidelines and will be sent for double-blind peer review. The Editorial Board aims to publish Vol. 24 (2021) at the end of the ensuing year.
N.B.: The present Call for Papers concerns the special thematic section of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law on the Cultures of International Humanitarian Law. Other than these thematic articles, the YIHL accepts general articles on any IHL-related theme on a rolling basis.
