The starvation of civilians in internal armed conflicts has been made a war crime, prosecutable by the International Criminal Court – a major step forward for the protection of civilians, underpinned by Blavatnik School input. 

In the war in Yemen, far more people have died from lack of essential supplies than from bombing. Starvation of civilians is an all-too-frequent feature of armed conflict – sometimes as an unintended consequence of military activities, but sometimes as a method of warfare. 

There is a broad consensus that this is morally repugnant, and condemnation is reflected in many instruments of international law; but previously the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court only included starvation in international conflict. 

Switzerland had proposed an amendment to apply it to non-international armed conflicts too. The Blavatnik School’s Professor Dapo Akande and colleagues in the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC), based at the School, advised the Swiss government on how to frame the amendment, and then organised a series of events aimed at persuading states of its merit, including at the annual meetings of the Assembly of States Parties to the Statute of the International Criminal Court and of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The Rome Statute was amended by unanimous decision. 

ELAC worked with the Swiss government, the World Food Programme and the International Bar Association’s War Crimes Committee on the Rome Statute amendment.