The International Law of Armed Conflict Team (ILOAC Team) was created in 2016 on the initiative of Raphaël van Steenberghe, a qualified researcher of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) and a full Professor of the University of Louvain (UCLouvain). The specific feature of that team is to address issues related to armed conflict not only from the perspective of the law of armed conflict (otherwise known as international humanitarian law (IHL)) but also from the perspective of other branches of international law also applicable in armed conflict, in particular the law on the use of force, international criminal law, international human rights law and international environmental law. The activities of the ILOAC-T are divided into a research component and a teaching component.
Whether academics, doctoral and postdoctoral students or scientific collaborators, all ILOAC Team’s members carry out research on various subjects that are topical in the field. The Team's current areas of research are varied: protection of the environment in armed conflict, prosecuting international crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the interplay between IHL and Human Rights Law, analogies in IHL, scope of application of the law of non-international armed conflict in the presence of extraterritorial conflicts, conflicts transformation, detention in non-international armed conflicts, special agreements concluded by armed groups, principle of equality between belligerents in non-international armed conflict, the obligation to extradite or prosecute international crimes and the armed conflict in Ukraine.
Although research is at the heart of the Team's concerns, the Team also enjoys sharing its experience with students of the Faculty of Law and Criminology and the general public. ILOAC Team’s members teach several courses or seminars, created an online course (MOOC) on the edX platform, organize conference cycles for students and support their participation in pleading competitions or moot courts.
