Jiri Toman, professor and international law scholar, passed away last month in Geneva, and we have been thinking about his important contributions to international humanitarian law. [thread]

As a researcher and later director of the Henry Dunant Institute, the research, training & publication center of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, he authored a number of publications that soon became indispensable for IHL researchers. http://library.icrc.org/library/search/shortview?searchField=a&searchType=Simple&searchTerm=toman

His Index of the 1949 Geneva Conventions published in 1973 in particular is an invaluable research tool and the product of considerable work.

Another topic he researched extensively was the USSR and socialist countries’ conception of the law of armed conflict - this was the subject of his thesis at the @IHEID.

Jiri Toman also contributed greatly to our understanding of the law protecting cultural property in armed conflict with his commentaries of the 1954 Hague Convention and its protocols. http://library.icrc.org/library/search/notice?noticeNr=14658

Last but not least, he was the one who came up with the idea of an IHL bibliography, first published in 1979 as a basic bibliography that quickly sold out.

It then became a more extensive bibliography of 5000 references compiled by Huong Thi Huynh (published in 1980), which was the inspiration for the IHL bibliography we publish today. https://www.icrc.org/en/document/international-humanitarian-law-bibliography