Conference programme

While states pour billions into defence budgets, international justice mechanisms face a chronic funding crisis. This isn’t just administrative, it contributes to conflict by undermining the capacity of institutions like the ICC, Conflict of Interest, and human rights treaty bodies to deliver justice. This panel will also consider the relationships between judicial and quasi-judicial efforts, the interrelationship of these with core international bodies, examining apparent duplications, overlaps and who loses out in the fight for global attention.

Artificial Intelligence presents myriad challenges and opportunities for both protecting and attacking civilian populations. This panel will focus on challenges and opportunities for civil society, militaries, combatants, and despots. How do we govern this new conflict arena, harness the benefits, and establish sound and robust ethical guard rails? Who will set the agenda?

Corporate and financial actors are increasingly (or at least more clearly) implicated in atrocity crimes; from supplying weapons to facilitating sanctions evasion. Conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and Israel/Palestine highlight the entanglement of business, state policy and serious violations of international law.

Climate change is no longer a background issue, it is fuelling conflict, driving displacement, and increasingly being used as a weapon of war. Calls to recognise ecocide as the fifth international crime are gaining traction, including a new Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) policy paper, positioning climate justice firmly within the war crimes discourse.