29 May 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - The 12th edition of the celebrated Summer Course on International Humanitarian Law will take place on 25 June-6 July 2012, in both Sanremo (Italy) and Geneva, announced the International Institute for Humanitarian Law (IIHL). As in previous years, the course will feature a UNOSAT module on the use of geospatial information and satellite analysis in the application of humanitarian law during conflict and crises.

In recent years, interest in International Humanitarian Law has continued to increase, and a variety of professionals and students have shown their readiness to devote more time to the study of this branch of law, explains the website of the International Institute for Humanitarian Law.

In response to this demand, the Institute, which conducts primarily specialised training for military personnel and public civil servants, has launched a popular annual Summer Course on International Humanitarian Law. The course takes place over a period of 2 weeks, with one week in Sanremo, Italy and one week in Geneva.

Since 2011 UNOSAT has become a part of the course after two yearly lectures that attracted keen interest from legal experts and humanitarian law practitioners. The UNOSAT module explains how satellite analysis has developed in recent years in this domain and in that of human rights and uses examples from actual conflict situations to illustrate the state of the art in documenting from space what happens on the ground during conflict and crises involving civilians.