Mardi 13 octobre 2026: Carlos Augusto Sibille Rivera
Carlos Augusto Sibille Rivera soutiendra, en vue de l'obtention du grade de docteur en droit, sa thèse intitulée:
« State Responsibility for Arms Transfers into Armed Conflicts: Non-Assistance and the Obligation to Ensure Respect for International Humanitarian Law »
Mardi 13 octobre 2026 – 9h30
Salle 3050 - UNI MAIL
Jury : Prof. Stuart MASLEN, Head of scientific projects à l’Académie de droit international humanitaire et droits humains à Genève et visiting professor à l’Université de Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud, Prof. Julia GRIGNON, professeure à l’Université de Paris Panthéon-Assas, France, Prof. Robert KOLB, Prof. Marco SASSÒLI (directeur de thèse), sous la présidence du Prof. Alexandre FLÜCKIGER, doyen de la Faculté de droit.
Résumé:
This thesis examines the international responsibility of States that transfer arms to parties to armed conflicts engaged in violations of international humanitarian law (IHL), whether States or armed non-State actors. States are bound by various international obligations regulating arms transfers, including when such transfers are connected to violations of IHL by the arms recipient. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is among the most recent international instruments that contain such obligations. However, not all States have ratified the ATT. Against this background, this research turns to rules of general international law and IHL that may provide a legal basis for establishing the international responsibility of arms-supplying States.
The research focuses on two international obligations: the obligation not to aid or assist in the commission of an internationally wrongful act and the obligation to respect and ensure respect for IHL under Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions. It examines their constituent elements, common features, differences and interaction within the general framework of the international law of State responsibility, in particular under the regime governing serious breaches of peremptory norms. Particular attention is given to the requirements of knowledge, risk and foreseeability, and to whether restrictive interpretations of these elements may deprive these obligations of practical effect.
Building on existing scholarship and legal developments advancing more expansive interpretations of State complicity and Common Article 1, this research tests the hypothesis that the obligation of non-assistance under the regime of serious breaches of peremptory norms and the obligation to ensure respect for IHL constitute complementary legal avenues for engaging the international responsibility of arms-supplying States.
13 oct. 2026