ICRC writing competition III

The International Committee of the Red Cross is proud to organize for the third time a writing competition in Arabic to engage the Arabic speaking scholars on relevant IHL discussions and to provide an academic platform for legal debates

Theme

The Geneva Conventions turn 70

The year 2019 marks the 70th anniversary of the four Geneva Conventions (GCs) of 1949. Today, the universally-ratified GCs represents one of the greatest achievements of inter-state cooperation.

Through the four GCs, protections are provided for wounded and sick soldiers/civilians on land and at sea, prisoners of war and civilians. In addition, a major achievement in 1949 was the inclusion of common Article 3 to all four Conventions, which provides protection to the victims of conflicts of a non-international character.

The article could tackle one of the following topics:

• An overview of the four GCs: Have they become outdated?
• The relevance/sufficiency of common Article 3 to regulate non-international armed conflicts
• How and why are non-state armed groups to engage in and be bound by the IHL
• The success and/or failures of the GCs to humanize contemporary armed conflicts
• The effectiveness of the GCs Implementation mechanisms
• The contemporary challenges facing GCs in today wars

Language

The article should be written in Arabic.

States concerned

Arabic speaking States

Guidelines

I. Preparation of Manuscripts

• Manuscripts should be submitted in Word format in 12 pt Times New Roman font with 1.5 line spacing (including the footnotes).
• Length: Manuscripts submitted should be approximately 10,000 words, footnotes included.
• Abstract: All manuscripts should be accompanied by a short abstract (less than 100 words) summarizing the main content/argument of the article.
• Keywords: A few keywords should be identified for easy web search and referencing
• CV: All manuscripts should be accompanied by a short biography (one or two sentences per author) describing the current function/affiliation of the author.
• Highlighting: No highlighting (bold, italics, underlined) should be used within the text body, except for italics for foreign language terms: e.g. a limine. Foreign organizations should not be set in italics.
• Headings: Please do not use more than 3 different levels of headings:

Title Level 1

Title Level 2

Title Level 3

II. Internet References:

For references available on the internet please indicate "available at:" followed by the full website link.

The first internet reference should indicate the date of the last visit for all subsequent references.
Example: ..., available at: https://international-review.icrc.org/ (all internet references were accessed in March 2014).

III. The editorial basics

• Rules of punctuation common in most of the Arabic countries have to be respected.
• Dates: Use the following style: 1 February 1989.
• Numerals: We use Arabic numbers, not Hindi. Numerals below 100 should be spelt out, except for ages, which should always been given in digits.

Awards

The ICRC has the honor to offer 3 levels of awards:

• The first place winner will receive a certificate and 1500 USD. In addition, the article will be considered for publication by the ICRC.
• The second place winner will receive certificate and 1,000 USD
• The third place winner will receive certificate and 750 USD

Deadline

You are requested to send your article to babdelmeguid@icrc.org before 6 December 2019.