Between Lawful Warfare and Unlawful Destruction: The Structural Invisibility of Genocide Through ‘Conditions of Life’

In their 2024 joint intervention in Gambia v Myanmar, six states warned the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) against “rendering […] findings of genocide near-impossible”. This project will investigate whether international law’s architecture already makes such findings

‘near-impossible’ when genocide occurs through the infliction of ‘conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction’ – genocide by attrition – rather than mass killings. At its core is the relationship between genocide law and international humanitarian law

(“IHL”), and whether their interaction creates blind spots permitting systematic violence against protected civilian populations. Using Gaza, Yemen and Ukraine as primary case studies, this project will interrogate whether current frameworks – developed within

20th century conceptions of conventional warfare and mass killing contexts – capture perpetration of genocide in modern warfare.