Beyond Compliance: In Conversation

S2 EP 5: Civilian Harm

What is ‘civilian harm’, and how should it be understood in contemporary warfare? Why do definitions matter, and who gets to shape them? In this episode, Katharine and Florian speak with Lauren Gould from Utrecht University and Janina Dill from the University of Oxford about evolving approaches to defining and addressing harm to civilians.Cited Documents:Gould, L., Demmers, J., Bijl, E., & Azeem , S. Investigating Remote Warfare as the Radical Undoing of Life: The compounding civilian harm effects of US-led coalition bombings in Iraq. Antipode. 2025.Gould, L., & Stel, N. (2021). Strategic ignorance and the legitimation of remote warfare: The Hawija bombardments. Security Dialogue ,53(1), 57 74.Dill, J., Myers, E., Schubiger L., A Matter of Principle: How Local Consent Affects U.S. Support for Military Interventions. International Security 2026; 50 (3): 55–85.Dill, J., Sagan, S., Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other, Security Studies, 34(5), 833–867.Guest Bios:Lauren Gould is Associate Professor in Conflict Studies and the principle investigator and project leader of the Realities of Algorithmic Warfare programme and Intimacies of Remote Warfare programme at Utrecht University. She also leads the project ‘Assembling the Western Way of War in Afghanistan and Beyond’ at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. From a critical conflict and war studies perspective her trans- and interdisciplinary research programmes trace and conceptualize the changing character of the Western way of war and its impact on civilian harm and democratic accountability. Janina Dill is the Dame Louise Richardson Chair in Global Security at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, a Professorial Fellow of Trinity College Oxford, and Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict (ELAC). Her research on law in war has been published in major journals of both International Law and Political Science. In 2021, she won a Philip Leverhulme Prize. She currently co-convenes studies on cumulative civilian harm in war, funded by the UKRI and the National Science Foundation, and on the concept of military objectives in IHL, in collaboration with the ICRC. She is a frequent public commentator on laws and ethics of war. The Beyond Compliance Consortium is a co-productive, socio-legal research partnership that traverses the fields of international law, conflict studies, humanitarian protection work and human rights policy, and brings together these communities of scholarship and practice with people with lived experience of conflict. It is funded by UK International Development. The second season is funded by UK International Development, while the first season was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in human rights law and international humanitarian law at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University. Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups. 

S2 EP 4: Domicide & Reparations

What does the loss of home during conflict mean for those affected? And how well does international law capture and address this experience? In this episode, Katharine and Florian talk to Luke Moffett, Chair of the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law at Queen's University Belfast, and Ammar Azzouz, Research Fellow at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, about the weaponisation of architecture during armed conflict, and how the emotional and social meaning of home challenges existing legal approaches.Cited Documents:Moffett, Luke, Justice for Victims before the International Criminal Court, Routledge, 2014. Moffett, Luke, Reparations and War, OUP, 2023.Moffett, Luke, Algorithms of War: The Human Cost of AI in Conflict, Bristol University Press, 2026.Azzouz, Ammar, Domicide: Architecture, War and the Destruction of Home in Syria, Bloomsbury, 2023.Azzouz, Ammar, Re-imagining Syria: Destructive reconstruction and the exclusive rebuilding of cities, 2020, City, 24(5–6), 721–740.Azzouz, Ammar, Return to Syria: what i found amid the ruins of Homs, Financial Times, 2025.Guest Bios:Professor Dr Luke Moffett is chair of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law at Queen's University Belfast. His research focuses on victims' rights, reparations, civilian harm, and the increasing algorithmic turn in armed conflict. He has conducted fieldwork in over a dozen conflict/post-conflict societies and worked with different victim groups in advocating and litigating for redress. He is author of Justice for Victims before the International Criminal Court (Routledge 2014), Reparations and War (OUP 2023), and Algorithms of War (BUP 2026).Ammar Azzouz is a British Academy Research Fellow at University of Oxford. His research focuses on destruction and reconstruction of cities, cultural heritage and art in exile. He is the author of Domicide: Architecture, War and the Destruction of Home in Syria, published by Bloomsbury in 2023.  He has written for a wide range of platforms including the New York Times, Financial Times and the Guardian.The Beyond Compliance Consortium is a co-productive, socio-legal research partnership that traverses the fields of international law, conflict studies, humanitarian protection work and human rights policy, and brings together these communities of scholarship and practice with people with lived experience of conflict. It is funded by UK International Development. The second season is funded by UK International Development, while the first season was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in human rights law and international humanitarian law at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University. Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups. 

S2 EP 3: Sanctions

How do sanctions affect the dynamics of armed conflict? How do sanctions work? And do they succeed in addressing harm and need? Exploring such questions, Katharine and Florian speak with Delaney Simon from the International Crisis Group and Mohammad Kanfash from Utrecht University. Cited Documents:Kanfash, Mohammad, Sanctions as Barriers to the Work of Humanitarian Organizations in Syria in “Economic Sanctions from Havana to Baghdad: Legitimacy, Accountability, and Humanitarian Consequences,” edited by Joy Gordon. 2025Kanfash, Mohammad, Interplay between sanctions, donor conditionality, and food insecurity in complex emergencies: the case of Syria. Disasters, 49. 2024Kanfash, Mohammad, Starve or Surrender: Sanctions as a Siege Warfare Strategy in the Syrian Conflict. Syria Studies Journal, (15) 01. 2023Simon, Delaney, It’s Not That Easy to Lift Sanctions on Syria, Foreign Policy, 2025.Simon, Delaney, Rethinking UN Sanctions on Syria’s Interim Leaders, International Crisis Group, 2025.Simon, Delaney, U.S. Sanctions Relief for Syria Is an Important Start, but Not Enough, Lawfare, 2025.Guest Bios:Mohammad Kanfash is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Conflict Studies, Utrecht University, and a humanitarian practitioner with 17 years of experience in the Middle East and Europe. His work bridges academic inquiry and field practice, focusing on sanctions and their consequences for conflict-affected societies.Delaney Simon is a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, where she researches conflict prevention and economic statecraft. She is the author of the organization’s flagship report on the impact of economic sanctions on conflict dynamics. She has worked there since 2021. From 2015 to 2021, Delaney served the United Nations in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Yemen. In those countries, she advised senior United Nations officials on political stability, conflict mitigation and humanitarian planning. Earlier in her career, she was the special assistant to Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York and a researcher on conflict policy in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries.The Beyond Compliance Consortium is a co-productive, socio-legal research partnership that traverses the fields of international law, conflict studies, humanitarian protection work and human rights policy, and brings together these communities of scholarship and practice with people with lived experience of conflict. It is funded by UK International Development. The second season is funded by UK International Development, while the first season was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in human rights law and international humanitarian law at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University. Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups. 

S2 EP 2: Famines & Starvation

What drives today’s famines? What role does armed conflict play? And to what extent does international law address these challenges? Engaging with such questions, in this episode of Beyond Compliance: In Conversation, Katharine and Florian speak with Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation and Professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and Yousuf Syed Khan, Investigations Manager at Legal Action Worldwide.Cited Documents:de Waal, Alex, The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa: Money, War and the Business of Power, Wiley, 2015.de Waal, Alex, Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine, Wiley, 2018.de Waal, Alex, New Pandemics, Old Politics: Two Hundred Years of War on Disease and its Alternatives, Polity, 2021.Khan, Syed Yousuf, Reframing Medical Deprivation Within the Starvation War Crime Paradigm, Tufts University, Fletcher School of Global Affairs, World Peace Foundation, forthcoming January 2026.Khan, Syed Yousuf, Gaza Arrest Warrants: Assessing Starvation as a Method of Warfare and Associated Starvation Crimes, Just Security, 2024.Kather, Alexandra Lily and Khan, Syed Yousuf, The Nexus Between Starvation Crimes and Sexual Violence: Indicia of On-going Extermination in Tigray, Ethiopia, Opinio Juris, 2023. Guest Bios:Alex de Waal is executive director of the World Peace Foundation and Research Professor at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He has worked on famine, conflict, and related issues since the 1980s as a researcher and practitioner. He served as a senior advisor to the African Union on Sudan and South Sudan in various capacities. He is the recipient of the Huxley Award of the Royal Anthropological Institute for 2024.Yousuf Syed Khan is the Investigations Manager at Legal Action Worldwide (LAW) in Geneva, overseeing international criminal investigations across multiple conflict-affected regions in support of strategic litigation. He is also a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project, and an associate fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague. Khan has over fifteen years of legal experience in complex conflict situations, with expertise on UN atrocity inquiries. Khan spent several years working in active conflict zones across Asia, Africa, and Europe.The Beyond Compliance Consortium is a co-productive, socio-legal research partnership that traverses the fields of international law, conflict studies, humanitarian protection work and human rights policy, and brings together these communities of scholarship and practice with people with lived experience of conflict. It is funded by UK International Development. The second season is funded by UK International Development, while the first season was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in human rights law and international humanitarian law at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University. Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups. 

S2 EP 1: Civilian Protection & the Legacies of the War in Afghanistan

How was civilian protection practiced and experienced during the international intervention and war in Afghanistan? And what are the legacies for international law today? In this episode, Katharine and Florian speak with Shaharzad Akbar, former Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and Thomas Gregory, author of Weaponizing Civilian Protection: Counterinsurgency and Collateral Damage in Afghanistan. Together, they explore how Afghans experienced harm amid two decades of conflict, how the coalition’s approach to civilian protection evolved, and what this reveals about international law.Cited Documents:Akbar, Shaharzad, The Battle Against Gender Apartheid: Hope through Accountability, Verfassungsblog, 2025. Akbar, Shaharzad, A Crisis of Justice for Afghan Victims of War, Just Security, 2022.Gregory, Thomas, Weaponizing Civilian Protection: Counterinsurgency and Collateral Damage in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2025).Edkins, Jenny, Zehfuss, Maja, and Gregory, Thomas, Global Politics: A New Introduction (Routledge, 2025). Guest Bios:Shaharzad Akbar is the Executive Director of Rawadari, an organisation that monitors and reports on the human rights situation in Afghanistan. She previously served as Chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Akbar is currently an Honorary Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. She holds an MPhil from the University of Oxford. Shaharzad's writing has appeared in Just Security, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Justice Info and other international outlets. Thomas Gregory is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research focuses on civilian casualties in contemporary conflict, with a particular emphasis on how civilian harm is legitimised. His most recent books are Weaponizing Civilian Protection: Counterinsurgency and Collateral Damage in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2025) and Global Politics: A New Introduction (Routledge, 2025), which is co-edited with Jenny Edkins and Maja Zehfuss. The Beyond Compliance Consortium is a co-productive, socio-legal research partnership that traverses the fields of international law, conflict studies, humanitarian protection work and human rights policy, and brings together these communities of scholarship and practice with people with lived experience of conflict. It is funded by UK International Development. The second season is funded by UK International Development, while the first season was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in human rights law and international humanitarian law at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University. Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups.