Thomas Van Poecke

About/Bio

Thomas Van Poecke is a PhD fellow at the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and a researcher at the KU Leuven Institute for International Law and Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies. He pursues a PhD on the relationship between international humanitarian law and counter-terrorism law. Thomas holds an LLM from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (2017) and a Master of Law from the University of Zurich (2015) and KU Leuven (2016).

Recently Published

The Gambia’s gamble, and how jurisdictional limits may keep the ICJ from ruling on Myanmar’s alleged genocide against Rohingya

  On 11 November, The Gambia filed an Application instituting proceedings and requesting provisional measures at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in relation to the genocide allegedly committed by Myanmar against the Rohingya (for a first analysis of the Application, see this post by Priya Pillai). As notably reported by The New…

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The IHL Exclusion Clause, and why Belgian Courts Refuse to Convict PKK Members for Terrorist Offences

On 8 March, the Chamber of Indictments of the Court of Appeal of Brussels decided to discontinue the prosecution of thirty-nine individuals and two media companies affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). All were being prosecuted for participating in the activities of, or directing, a terrorist group. The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office had opened the investigation in…

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