Weapons Law Encyclopedia Online

Project of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, the Weapons Law Encyclopedia is the

world’s first-ever online encyclopaedia of public international law applicable to weapons. … [it] aims to provide accurate, up-to-date information on weapons, the effects of their use, and their regulation under international and national law….

weaponslawencyclopediaThis website is available online at no charge making this resource accessible by anyone. It was launched in December 2013 and users may also download it as a paid iPhone/iPad app. The goal of the encyclopedia is to provide technical characteristics of weapons and their intended use, impacts of weapon use, and the international rules and norms governing the use of weapons. The encyclopedia includes four sources of information:

  • Historical and technical information about weapons as well as information about their intended use;
  • Treaties governing and related to the use of weapons outlining the evolution of international regulatory instruments;
  • Case law (judicial decisions issued by international, regional judicial, and quasi-judicial bodies); and
  • Glossary summarizing concepts of weapons law.

The Weapons Law Encyclopedia can be browsed by the identified categories, searched using free text search and results can be filtered by the identified categories. 

Additionally, each category can be browsed or searched. When displaying the weapons listing category, entries are further subdivided into legal regulation, main injury or damage mechanism, and policy theme categories. Treaties listing category is further subdivided into arms control and disarmament, International Humanitarian Law, and Terrorism categories. Case Law listing entries are further subdivided by courts: ICJ, Int’l Criminal Tribunals, National jurisprudence, Regional Human Rights bodies, and others. Lastly, glossary listing is an alphabetical listing of entries.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *