Embattled Battlefield Instruction: Contestation in Wartime Legal Training

This public workshop, organized as part of the Minnesota Human Rights Lab’s ‘Minnesota Model’ of human rights research, will introduce audiences to the training programs used to instruct militaries around the world of their rights and responsibilities under international law, and why differences in these training programs matter for the wartime application of human rights. In this workshop, primary investigators Cosette Creamer (Assistant Professor of Political Science and Law, University of Minnesota) and Tracey Blasenheim (PhD Candidate in Political Science and Human Rights Center Research Fellow, University of Minnesota) along with Colonel Mark Dakers (British Army; Director of the Military Department at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law) will present their research on military legal training programs and invite attendees to participate in an interactive exercise that brings this research, and its real-world stakes, to life. Attendees will see first hand how seemingly innocuous interpretive differences can translate into markedly different guidance to arms carriers on the battlefield regarding the protections afforded to noncombatants in war zones.

The Human Rights Lab is an interdisciplinary space for faculty and students at the University of Minnesota to investigate and model ways that cutting-edge research can be used more effectively with NGOs, communities, institutions, and policymakers to reduce inequalities in the enjoyment of human rights. The Lab is jointly administered by the Human Rights Center (Law School) and the Human Rights Program (CLA) and funded by the University’s Grand Challenges Research Initiative.