30 October 2024 - 01 November 2024 | Justus Liebig University Gießen
The excessive use of force has been a recurring phenomenon over time and throughout different regions in a broad variety of contexts as part of transformations of political violence.
Integral to our agenda as a Research Center are efforts to analyze, to better understand and to reduce or at least manage the many conflicts that have again increased in intensity. We are faced with new forms of war and terrorist violence, and there is a systematic disregard for international humanitarian law (and human rights law). Humankind is under pressure in light of these developments that challenge existing norms and practices for containing political violence. However, historically such excessive uses of force have not been unique. It is challenging to socio-culturally (historically and empirically) understand these phenomena, and to ask for normative responses to such developments.
Our annual conference will be held at Giessen, Germany, from October 30, 2024, until November 1, 2024.
It will be organized alongside four sections:
1. socio-cultural (including historical) analyses of excessive use of force;
2. empirical studies of excessive use of force;
3. the role of international law to avoid excessive use of force;
4. normative responses to excessive use of force beyond international law.
In each of the four sections a variety of situations will be covered extending from revolutionary and post-revolutionary violence, across civil wars, up to international armed conflicts.