The three-day Flanders Fields Conference of Military Law and the Law of War, held in October 2014 in Ypres, was organized by the Belgian Research Centre for Military Law and the Law of War, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Belgian Royal Higher Institute for Defence, with the support of the City of Ypres, the British Army Legal Services, the Institute for International Affairs at the University of Hamburg and Melbourne University School of Law. The event, which was convened to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the First World War, provided a forum for discussion of various aspects of the 1914-1918 War from a historical perspective. The many presentations detailed not only the events of the War, but also the challenges of military, humanitarian and international law that were faced in the interwar period or that lawyers and members of the armed forces are confronted with in the present day.

The conference Silent leges inter arma? took place in September 2017 in Bruges and was organized by the Belgian Research Centre for Military Law and the Law of War and the Universities of Exeter and Melbourne. The participants explored a broad spectrum of contemporary challenges of military operations, such as the use of force in support of domestic counter-terrorism efforts, problems related to mutual legal assistance for the prosecution of international crimes, parliamentary oversight of the armed forces and the human rights of military personnel. Two important handbooks were introduced at the event, namely the Updated Commentaries on the First and Second Geneva Conventions of 1949 of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Leuven Manual on the International Law Applicable to Peace Operations of the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War.