On the morning of May 10, 2018, Professor Raymond Murphy at the Irish Centre for Human Rights has launched an excellent lecture entitled "Challenges to International Humanitarian Law and War Crimes" for postgraduate students in the institute for human rights. Professor Zhang Wei, Co-director of the institute warmly welcomed his arrival.

The lecture included two parts. The first part was on the content of International Humanitarian Law. In this section, the Origins and development of International Humanitarian Law, its scope of application, important principles and types of violations were mainly discussed. Professor Raymond Murphy explained that war crime is an individual crime, not the state. His emphasis was put on key concepts and Principles such as “armed conflict” “military necessity”  “Principle of humanity” “Principle of Distinction” and “Precaution”. He also explained the issues related to targeting, methods of combat, command responsibility and protected persons with his own experience. For example, as protected persons, prisoners of war could only be foreigners.

Several students raised questions during the second part. Lu Yuan asked a question that if the humanitarian law separate with human rights law and Professor Raymond Murphy answered yes with his understanding. All the students eagerly looked forward to the next lecture.

Written by Feng Tingting