How can we render starvation so morally toxic that global leaders in a position to inflict or fail to prevent it, will instead act to avoid it? Join the experts for an intimate panel discussion on the crime of starvation and its current use in conflict.
This event follows on from the Side Event to the 17th Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, which considered Switzerland’s proposed amendment to the Rome Statute to include the war crime of starvation in a non-international armed conflict. The expert panel will discuss the proposed amendment and the prospects of a prosecution without it; why starvation should be viewed as an atrocity crime; how it has been adjudicated upon previously in international tribunals; and what the International Criminal Court can offer in the absence of a starvation trial.
About the speakers
- Alex de Waal is the Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation. An expert on Sudan and the Horn of Africa, his scholarly work and practice has also probed famine, humanitarian crisis and response, human rights, HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa, and conflict and peace-building. His latest book is Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine (Polity Press 2017).
- Wayne Jordash QC. Global Rights Compliance. Wayne Jordash QC is a world leading expert in international humanitarian law (‘IHL’) and international human rights law (‘IHRL’), with unparalleled experience across the globe, regularly advising governments, including the Ukrainian, Bangladeshi, Libyan, Serbian and Vietnamese governments, on their compliance with IHL and IHRL.
- Catriona Murdoch. Global Rights Compliance. Catriona joined GRC in 2016, she currently leads the project Accountability for Mass Starvation: Testing the Limits of the Law which extends to all international humanitarian law and international human rights law offences, with particular focus on the crime of starvation and the prospects of prosecuting starvation, the withholding of food and/or the deliberate destruction of agricultural areas in Yemen.
- Moderating the event is Federica D’Alessandra, founding Executive Director of the Oxford Programme on International Peace and Security at the Blavatnik School of Government’s Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict. She specializes in public international law, international criminal, human rights, and humanitarian law.
- Ali Aljasem is the Human Security Officer at Damaan Humanitarian Organization and a researcher at the Conflict Studies Center at Utrecht University. Previously Ali worked for Médecins Sans Frontières in Aleppo. Ali is a frequent guest lecturer at Utrecht University commenting on Syria and the MENA region politics.