In the wake of the recent Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli Defense Force bombardment of the Gaza Strip, the international community is grappling with the concept of ceasefires.
Amid the destruction and rising death toll, numerous different terms have been used interchangeably to refer to what is commonly known as a ceasefire. These include “humanitarian pause”, “truce” and “cessation of hostilities”.
In this special and urgent session for MFU, Melbourne Law School Research Fellow Marika Sosnowski delves into the historical context of ceasefires, the lack of legal provisions guiding their negotiation and the need for a more nuanced approach to their negotiation and implementation.
Marika Sosnowski is an Australian-qualified lawyer, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Melbourne Law School and a Research Associate at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg. Her works sits at the intersection of socio-political-legal anthropology. Her primary research interests are in the fields of critical security studies (mainly ceasefires), local/rebel governance and legal systems (particularly issues around citizenship and belonging) with a geographical focus on Syria. Her book, Redefining Ceasefires: Wartime Order and Statebuilding in Syria was published in June 2023 with Cambridge University Press.
