In addition to the incident of 7 April 2017, the present issue provides an opportunity to revisit questions related to military operations of coalitions and to the phenomenon of autonomous weapons. Bérénice Boutin, researcher at the TMC Asser Institute, explores the question of responsibility for the conduct of military partners in joint military operations. Her article focuses on the legal framework of negative and positive obligations governing a State’s responsibility for actions and omissions of its partners in the context of a joint military operation. With regard to autonomous weapons, Ozlem Ulgen, Senior Lecturer at the School of Law of Birmingham City University, analyses the duty of care borne by States and private actors (e.g. manufacturers) towards civilians, before the deployment of such weapons, in the light of Smith and others v. MOD (2013, UK) and Article 36 of the 1977 Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions.

The last pages of this issue contain a report from a conference on the new commentary of Geneva Convention (I), hosted in Brussels on 29 September 2017 by the Belgian Interministerial Commission for Humanitarian Law, the Belgian Red Cross and the ICRC, with the support of the Belgian Society for International Law. Written by four doctoral candidates from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Université Catholique de Louvain, Pauline Lesaffre (UCL), Samuel Longuet (ULB), Alice Sinon (UCL) and Julien Tropini (ULB), the report summarizes the presentations and engaging debates on the four main themes of the conference, namely, the obligation to “ensure respect” of international humanitarian law set out in common Article 1 to the four Geneva Conventions; the classification of armed conflicts; the protection of the wounded and sick in international and non-international armed conflicts; and the implementation of the Geneva Conventions.

We could not conclude this foreword without paying tribute to Stanislas Horvat who left the team of directors of the Review earlier this year. For many years, Stanislas was the true linchpin of the Review: he supported it vigorously and, in many ways, shepherded it through difficult times by devoting more of his time and energy than anyone else. The Review owes a great deal to Stanislas and we extend our deepest gratitude for all that he has done over the years. At the same time, we welcome the arrival of Martyna Fałkowska-Clarys, Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Luxembourg, who will take up the position of Managing Editor of the Review.