The West Point Companion to the Updated ICRC Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention

Sean Watts

The Companion is intended as an analysis of the ICRC’s updated Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention. The Companion provides an article-by-article examination of the ICRC’s work on the Third Geneva Convention. It alerts readers to both commendable and controversial aspects of the updated Commentary. The Companion labels and explains the interpretive approaches taken, the evidence cited (and not cited), and the analytical choices made in the production of the work by the ICRC.

ISBN 978-1-959631-02-6 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-959631-03-3 (ebook)

What People Are Saying

  • "This is a novel and comprehensive approach to analyzing the new ICRC commentary. It is extremely well reasoned and thorough. It consults both the current publication as well as the prior publication and analyzes the changes between the two. It is a well-written, clearly scholarly document that is extremely valuable for practitioners in the field."

    Eric Talbot Jensen

    Professor of Law, BYU Law School

  • "There are many excellent books in the law of war field but there is no book like this one –a detailed analysis of a treaty and its commentary, with history, methodology and practice all woven in. It offers an entirely new framework for study and analysis of the law and, in doing so, sets the bar extremely high."

    Laurie R. Blank

    Clinical Prof. of Law, Emory Law School

    Special Counsel to the General Counsel, DoD

  • "Prof. Watts is undoubtedly one ofthe most highly qualified scholars writing in this field. His extensive practical experience as a military attorney in the U.S. Army gives him tremendous insight into the needs of practitioners, while he has also established himself as a foremost scholar of the law of war. He has an extensive scholarly record with impressive and influential publications in prestigious academic journals while providing incisive analysis in more popular platforms such as the Articles of War blog housed at the Lieber Institute. "

    Scott Sullivan

    Harvey A. Peltier Professorship and J. Dawson Gasquet Endowed Professorship, LSU Law School

Meet the Author

Sean Watts

Sean Watts is a Professor in the Department of Law at the United States Military Academy at West Point where he co-directs the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare.

Prof. Watts has served as a defense team member at the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, testified as an expert in the law of war at the Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and served as a Contributor and Reading Committee Member to the International Committee of the Red Cross Updated Commentaries on the Geneva Conventions.

Watts holds an LL.M. from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School, a J.D. from the College of William & Mary School of Law, and a B.A. from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

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