# Episode 46: Protection of Civilians: Crisis, Commentary and Compliance

An episode of [EJIL: The Podcast!](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1508367340), 13 Oct 2026, 45 min.

Audio: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/a502baf0-3f42-4afa-a5e4-72b585f5d66c.mp3

The number and extent of today’s armed conflicts, and the crisis of compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL), are well-recognized. In his annual report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, the UN Secretary-General has underscored how “\[i\]nconsistent standards, assertions of exceptional circumstances and hollow calls for compliance \[have\] undermined respect for international humanitarian law”. Similarly, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has acknowledged that the problem is not only about a lack of compliance, but active disregard for IHL. At the same time, the ICRC has recently come to the end of a long cycle of work revising its commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention, which sets out key protections for civilians in armed conflict and under occupation. This episode focuses today on what feels like a stark gulf between the intricate work on the commentary – looking closely at individual articles of a 75-year-old Convention – and the larger sense of a growing and highly complex crisis of compliance in IHL. Joining us for this episode are three experts in IHL: Marnie Lloydd (Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington), Abhimanyu George Jain (ICRC), and Yousuf Syed Khan (Legal Action Worldwide). For additional relevant materials, please see the EJIL:Talk! blog post announcing this episode or the landing page of EJIL: The Podcast.

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