Breakfast Briefing with Alexander Wentker
Who is at War? Establishing Party Status and its Meaning in International Law
Abstract
The question of what constitutes an armed conflict has featured prominently in international law debates. However, international lawyers have paid less attention to the inextricable question of who is engaged in a conflict, focusing solely on whether there is an armed conflict. The briefing explores why it matters and how it is established that a State, international organisation, or armed group is a party to an armed conflict. The first part of the briefing demonstrates that party status is central at all levels of the international legal regulation of armed conflicts, with parties to armed conflict being both key addressees of international law and central reference points for regulating individuals and third parties. In response to increasingly widespread cooperation practices, the briefing’s second part advances an analytical framework for identifying parties to conflicts with multiple parties on the same side (or 'co-parties'). This framework allows for a refined account of how responsibilities are allocated in armed conflicts and hopes to provide a piece to the larger puzzle of e how international law can best respond to the realities of contemporary conflicts.
About the Speaker
Alexander Wentker is a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, an associate researcher at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and an associate fellow with Chatham House’s international law programme. Alexander has a range of research interests in public international law, public law, and EU law. His book Party Status to Armed Conflict in International Law was published with OUP earlier this year. He teaches courses in public law and international law at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and and Freie Universität Berlin. Alexander holds a doctorate in law and an MJur from the University of Oxford as well as a Maîtrise en droit from Université Paris II-Panthéon-Assas. He is a fully qualified German lawyer and a former clerk of the Supreme Court of Namibia.
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