International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Writing Competition 2019 for Arabic-speaking Countries

The International Committee of the Red Cross is proud to organize for the third time a writing competition in Arabic to engage the Arabic speaking scholars on relevant IHL discussions and to provide an academic platform for legal debates

Application Deadline: 6th December 2019

Eligible Countries: Arabic speaking States

About the Award:

The Geneva Conventions turn 70

The year 2019 marks the 70th anniversary of the four Geneva Conventions (GCs) of 1949. Today, the universally-ratified GCs represents one of the greatest achievements of inter-state cooperation.
Through the four GCs, protections are provided for wounded and sick soldiers/civilians on land and at sea, prisoners of war and civilians. In addition, a major achievement in 1949 was the inclusion of common Article 3 to all four Conventions, which provides protection to the victims of conflicts of a non-international character.
The article could tackle one of the following topics:

• An overview of the four GCs: Have they become outdated?
• The relevance/sufficiency of common Article 3 to regulate non-international armed conflicts
• How and why are non-state armed groups to engage in and be bound by the IHL
• The success and/or failures of the GCs to humanize contemporary armed conflicts
• The effectiveness of the GCs Implementation mechanisms
• The contemporary challenges facing GCs in today wars

Type: Contest

Eligibility: The article should be written in Arabic.

Preparation of Manuscripts

• Manuscripts should be submitted in Word format in 12 pt Times New Roman font with 1.5 line spacing (including for the footnotes).
• Length: Manuscripts submitted should be approximately 10,000 words, footnotes included.
• Abstract: All manuscripts should be accompanied by a short abstract (less than 100 words) summarizing the main content/argument of the article.
• Keywords: A few keywords should be identified for easy web search and referencing
• CV: All manuscripts should be accompanied by a short biography (one or two sentences per author) describing the current function/affiliation of the author..
• Highlighting: No highlighting (bold, italics, underlined) should be used within the text body, except for italics for foreign language terms: e.g. a limine. Foreign organizations should not be set in italics.
• Headings: Please do not use more than 3 different levels of headings:

Title Level 1

Title Level 2

Title Level 3

II. Internet References:

For references available on the internet please indicate “available at:” followed by the full website link.
The first internet reference should indicate the date of the last visit for all subsequent references.
Example: …, available at: www.icrc.org/eng/resources/international-review/index.jsp (all internet references were accessed in March 2014).

III. The editorial basics

• Rules of punctuation common in most of the Arabic countries have to be respected.
• Dates: Use the following style: 1 February 1989.
• Numerals: We use Arabic numbers not Hindi. Numerals below 100 should be spelt out, except for ages, which should always been given in digits.

Value of Award: The ICRC has the honor to offer 3 levels of awards:

• The First place winner will receive a certificate and 1500 USD. In addition, the article will be considered for publication by the ICRC.
• The second place winner will receive Certificate and 1000 USD
• The third place winner will receive Certificate and 750 USD

How to Apply: You are requested to send your article to [email protected] before 6 December 2019.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details