Public Pleadings by LLM Students on the 2008 South Ossetian Conflict

Event

ICRC

The one-week long conflict over South Ossetia in August 2008 left lives, homes, and communities devastated, and gave rise to numerous allegations of violations of international humanitarian law (IHL). In January 2016 the International Criminal Court authorized the opening of a formal investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor into the situation.

In the framework of the LLM course on IHL given by Professor Marco Sassòli of the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva, students will plead for Russia and Georgia arguing that the side they represent has respected IHL while the adverse side has violated IHL.

In front of a jury composed of Professor Marco Sassòli and Elvina Pothelet, teaching assistant at the Geneva Academy, students (whose roles were attributed by the lot) will plead on:

The classification of the conflict and applicable law

• Classification of persons and territory
• Killing and destruction of property of ethnic Georgians
• The use of weapons and precautionary measures during ground and air offensives
• The targeting of persons
• The detention of prisoners by Georgian and by South Ossetian forces

Registration

The public is welcome to attend the pleadings which will be performed in English and can register via the online form.