The Platform for Peace and Humanity (PfPH) is inviting submissions by way of a ‘Call for Blogs’ for its international law blog on a rolling basis.

About PfPH

The Platform for Peace and Humanity is a non-profit civic association of young professionals who are dedicated to promoting peace and humanity in the world by means of international law. In partnership with other civil society organisations and with our volunteers, we aim to develop and implement projects focused on protecting human rights, facilitating international justice, and fostering peace around the world.

The Platform also provides commentaries and legal perspectives on international justice issues. Recognising the importance of raising awareness about ongoing violations of human rights and bringing new insights from young professionals, the Platform works to elevate these perspectives into global discussions to further the cause of international justice. 

The Platform has the following ongoing projects:

1. Towards the enforcement of the Right to Peace: The goal of this global campaign is to advocate for the progressive development of the human right to peace and crimes against peace in international law. The global advocacy programme has been awarded the 2021 Best Youth Project from Europe Award at the Intergenerational Forum on Peace, the Climate, Nuclear Disarmament, and the Pandemic (PACEY). As a part of this project, the Platform has launched its Global Coalition of Youth Ambassadors for the Right to Peace that consists of young peace ambassadors from across the globe and will undergo training by internationally renowned subject experts and manage advocacy campaigns. 
2. International Law Blog: The international law and affairs blog is a part of the Platform’s research and awareness programme. It aims to provide rich commentary on the pressing developments on the matters concerning peace, conflict, and international law.  
3. Ukraine Project: The project concerns the international crimes committed during the Maidan events and the situation in occupied Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Since May 2021, the project is supported by the Visegrad Fund and in partnership with the Faculty of Law of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Faculty of Law of the Palacký University in Olomouc. The project prepared a study titled “The admissibility of criminal cases before the International Criminal Court related to the Maidan events and the situation in occupied Crimea and eastern Ukraine”. 
4. Peace and Security Monitor: The Peace & Security Monitor project analyzes peace processes, conflicts, and factors of instability in various regions of the world. The Peace & Security Monitor gathers data and information from the international organisations, national ministries, and other relevant official sources concerning the peace and security problems in the covered regions. It aims to provide a review of how political actors shape the current geopolitical situation, focusing on thematic issues such as peace processes, global trade, energy security, or arms trade. As a part of the project, it releases a bi-monthly publication, 
5. Weekly News Recap: As a part of its outreach and awareness program, the Platform weekly publishes a news recap covering all international law and affairs issues for its audience. The two broad categories are – International Justice and International Peace and Security.

Themes and Sub-Themes

The Blog of the Platform for Peace and Humanity welcomes submissions in the following areas:

• Law: public international law, human rights law, international humanitarian and criminal law, international environment law
• International Affairs: foreign policy, sustainable global peace efforts and regional and international politics

Word Limit 

The Blog invites unsolicited submissions and entries ranging from anything between 1500-5000 words.

Text Formatting Guidelines

1. Title of the submission should have a maximum of 100 characters.
2.  The main text shall use a consistent font and styling. Authors are thus entitled to use any font in their submissions.
3. Subheadings in the main text shall be in bold.
4. Submissions shall be submitted in (British or American) English. Authors should remain consistent throughout the article.
5. Dates in the text shall appear in the following format: 1 August 2021.
6. Numbers from one to nine shall appear spelt out. Numerals should be used from 10 and above.
7. The use of abbreviations and acronyms is encouraged in both the text body and the footnotes or endnotes, provided the full name is written out the first time it appears in the text and is accompanied by the abbreviation noted in parentheses.
8. “Double quotation marks” should be used for quotes (verbatim words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs).
9. When finishing the sentence with a quote using “double quotation marks”, the full stop shall be used outside of the quotation mark.
10. Authors are requested to indent quotes with 4 and more sentences in the main text.

Endnotes Formatting Guidelines

1. Submissions shall be submitted with footnotes, endnotes, or functional hyperlinks in the main text.
2. When using hyperlinks in the main text to lengthy sources or sources with more than 1 page, the exact location of the reference shall be indicated in the main text (e.g. on page 5 of the judgment, the court ruled that…).
3. Footnotes and endnotes should be numbered using Arabic numbers.
4. Footnotes and endnotes shall end with a full stop.
5. If the same source is cited twice in direct succession, use “Ibid.” instead of repeating the full citation.
6. Latin phrases and phrases such as “see”, “also”, “e.g.,”, “Ibid.” shall be in Italic.
7. No citation style is imposed. Footnotes and endnotes shall be internally coherent and follow the same style throughout the entire text (e.g., OSCOLA).
8. An incomplete or illogical citation style may justify refusing or postponing the peer-reviewing process of the submission.

General Guidelines

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the Platform for Peace and Humanity the right of the first publication.
2. Others are entitled to share the blog post with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and citing the author’s initial publication on the blog of the Platform for Peace and Humanity.
3.  Authors may enter into separate, additional arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the published submission (e.g., publish the submission in a journal or a book), with the acknowledgement of the initial publication on the blog of the Platform for Peace and Humanity.
4. Authors are permitted and encouraged to share their published blog post after being notified by an email about the publication of their submission on the blog.

Submission Guidelines

1. Authors shall submit an electronic version of their article in Microsoft Word document format by sending it to blog@peacehumanity.org. All submissions will be peer-reviewed by the editorial board. The peer-review process may take up to one month.
2. The authors shall submit a short bio of maximum of 4 sentences.
3. Optionally, authors are invited to attach to their email an image which they wish to include in their blog post, serving as an illustration of the content, and the web location of that image. An image may be taken by the article’s author, or obtained from image search engines such as Google, Flick or Pixabay. The authors shall respect the license and the exact terms of use. Accordingly, the authors shall provide the following information: “Photo by Author/Organisation that owns the image via Source” (e.g. Photo by John Smith via Wikipedia Commons or Photo by International Court of Justice via Flickr.com)

Click here for the official International Law Blog of PfPH.