This book launch is hosted by the Oxford Martin Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations

Author: Dr Sharon Weill, Sciences Po, Paris

Book Summary: International humanitarian law is increasingly applied in domestic courts. The book offers a critical analysis of different national courts' rulings, in which both the legal arguments and the political context examined. The book argues that national courts demonstrate different functional roles, which can be situated on a scale ranging from apology to utopia. It shows that the functional role of the national courts is a combination of contradictions and mixed attitudes, and that national courts are in the process of defining their own role as enforcing organs of international humanitarian law.

Biography: Dr Sharon Weill is an international lawyer specializing in international humanitarian law. Her particular field of interest is the relationship between international and domestic law and the judicial enforcement mechanism of international law at a national level. In this context, she conducted a number of field researches in Israel and Palestine (most notably in the Israeli military courts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories) and in the Balkans (Serbian war crimes chamber). In parallel to her academic work, Dr Weill gives seminars on a regular basis for NGOs practitioners. She writes reports for NGOs and media, and has worked with the UN fact finding mission into the Gaza conflict in 2010.