Prof. Laurie R. Blank
Laurie R. Blank is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic at Emory University School of Law, where she teaches the law of armed conflict and works directly with students to provide assistance to international tribunals, non-governmental organisations and law firms around the world on cutting edge issues in humanitarian law and human rights. Professor Blank is the co-author of International Law and Armed Conflict: Fundamental Principles and Contemporary Challenges in the Law of War, a casebook on the law of war (with G. Noone, Aspen Publishing 2013). She is also the co-director of a multi-year project on military training programs in the law of war and the co-author of Law of War Training: Resources for Military and Civilian Leaders (USIP 2008, with G. Noone, second edition 2013). She is the author of numerous articles and opinion pieces on topics in the law of armed conflict, including targeted killing and drone strikes, the classification of armed conflict, implementation of the law of armed conflict during military operations, cyber war, and law and legitimacy in armed conflict.
Whereas video releases have been central to the Islamic State’s efforts to represent itself to its audiences, an extensive quantitative and qualitative study of these sources over a longer period of time is still lacking. This paper therefore provides an overview and analysis of the entire corpus of official videos released by the Islamic State […]
The former self-declared caliphate of the Islamic State (IS), once the size of Britain, has collapsed. Its attractiveness to the global jihadi movement also became evident in Germany. The German Federal Domestic Intelligence Service (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) estimates that more than 1.050 Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) have left Germany for Syria and Iraq of whom, to […]
This policy brief examines the role former extremists and former combatants have in countering violent extremism (CVE). ‘The former’ as a special category of actor in CVE activities, including in peacebuilding settings, has gained significant attention in recent years. Various organisations and governments have utilised formers in CVE activities yet it remains unclear if and […]