The Board of the Henry Dunant Prize Foundation is pleased to award the Henry Dunant Prize — Research for the year 2025 to Lisang Nyathi.
Biography
Lisang Nyathi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Comparative, European and International Legal Studies (2024) from the University of Trento, Italy, where he completed a thesis on “ECtHR Jurisprudence on Cross-Border Gestational Surrogacy: Focusing on the Best Interests of the Child.” He also obtained an LL.M. in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights from the Geneva Academy (2025), during which he interned with the Geneva Human Rights Platform. Currently, Lisang is pursuing a Ph.D. in Human Rights, Global Politics and Sustainability: Legal and Philosophical Perspectives at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy. His research interests broadly lie at the intersection of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, with a particular focus on the protection of children and their rights in armed conflict, particularly education.
Summary of LL.M. Paper
With the global proliferation of armed conflicts, children are among the most vulnerable, facing severe violations of their human rights, particularly the right to education. The paper argues that despite legal and normative protection, this right is being violated in armed conflict situations in many ways. Drawing on the established link between the right to education and human dignity under IHRL, it proposes a novel interpretive framework that reframes the denial of education in armed conflict not merely as a legal violation, but as a direct assault on children’s human dignity. It argues that this link is so fundamental that it forms both the foundation and the transformative power of education. If this interpretative lens were integrated into legal protection, many conducts happening today in armed conflicts would not be permitted simply because education is not only grounded on human dignity but also delivers a dignified life.
The paper begins by situating the study in the global context of contemporary armed conflicts, highlighting alarming statistics of violations of children’s right to education globally. Adopting a global rather than case-specific approach, it argues that children’s right to education in armed conflict must be guaranteed everywhere, for every child, without discrimination. It then defines key terms such as education, human dignity, children, and armed conflict.
The second part examines current international protection of children’s right to education during armed conflict under IHRL and IHL. While both frameworks offer important protection, they do so differently. IHRL explicitly enshrines the right to education, imposing binding positive and negative obligations on States that apply even during conflict. IHL, by contrast, protects children and schools primarily through their civilian status, with a few specific safeguards in occupation, internment, and NIACs. Despite these protections, grave and recurring violations persist, underscoring the urgent need to strengthen the protection of this right. This paper argues that limiting the assessments of the impact of armed conflict on children’s right to education, whether in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, the DRC, or elsewhere, to the current legal framework fails to capture the full extent of the harm caused. The denial of education during armed conflict is not only a violation of legal obligations under IHRL and IHL but also a profound assault on the inherent dignity of the child.
Drawing on this, the third section of the paper, serving as the core of the thesis, proposes reframing the legal approach by linking the right to education, human dignity, and IHL. It argues that the concept of human dignity offers a powerful yet underexplored normative and legal basis for enhancing protection. Drawing from IHRL, the paper asserts that education is both grounded in and essential to the realization of human dignity. In armed conflict, IHRL and IHL obligations should therefore be interpreted and enforced in ways that reflect and uphold this relationship. Denying education, it concludes, is not simply unlawful, it is a profound assault on children’s human dignity, a core value in both IHRL and IHL.
The fourth section proposes actionable strategies to operationalize this framework in practice. It outlines three key strategies: (1) mainstreaming education as a central humanitarian and legal priority; (2) ensuring safe and demilitarized learning environments through measures like the Safe Schools Declaration; and (3) supporting long-term educational recovery and reparation after conflict.
In conclusion, the paper reaffirms that the violation of children’s right to education in armed conflict is not only a violation of international law but a profound assault on their dignity. Protecting education, therefore, is not merely about preserving learning spaces, it is about defending the humanity, future, and dignity of every child affected by war.
More information about Lisang
I am currently based in Pisa, Italy, pursuing a PhD in Human Rights, Global Politics, and Sustainability: Legal and Philosophical Perspectives at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. My research explores the right to education for children affected by armed conflict. Over the coming years, I aim to collaborate closely with international organizations dedicated to protecting children in conflict zones and ensuring their access to safe, quality education. In the long term, I aim to continue advancing the protection of children’s rights during and after armed conflicts.
Laudatio
Laudatio for Mr. Lisang Nyathi, Laureate of the 2025 Henry Dunant Research Prize
It is an honour to celebrate Mr. Lisang Nyathi, recipient of the 2025 Henry Dunant Research Prize, for his dissertation “When Bullets Threaten the Pursuit of Knowledge: Reclaiming Children’s Right to Education in Armed Conflict through a Human Dignity-Centred Approach under IHRL and IHL.”
Supervised by Professor Clara Sandoval at the Geneva Academy, this outstanding work embodies the very ideals that inspired Henry Dunant: humanity, courage, and faith in law as a force for compassion.
Renewing Dunant’s vision
The Henry Dunant Research Prize rewards academic work that deepens and renews Dunant’s ideals. Mr. Nyathi’s study does precisely that. By focusing on the right of children to education in armed conflict, he joins Dunant’s lifelong struggle to protect civilians and give voice to those silenced by violence. Dunant once dreamt of a “Green Cross” to protect women and children as the Red Cross protects the wounded; this dissertation gives that dream legal substance.
For Mr. Nyathi, the destruction or occupation of schools is not a mere collateral tragedy but a direct assault on human dignity. He argues that the denial of education must be seen not only as a legal violation but as an encroachment on the child’s intrinsic worth—“the human dignity of the child,” in his own words. Through this lens, he transforms education from an ancillary social right into a core humanitarian concern, central to dignity and peace.
A rigorous and practical legal argument
The dissertation unites international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) within a coherent dignity-centred framework. It demonstrates how dignity, long recognized in IHRL, can also guide the interpretation of IHL—enhancing protections for children and schools without inventing new norms.
As noted in the thesis supervisor’s evaluation, the work is “spotless in presentation, rigorously researched, and elegantly argued.” Beyond doctrinal precision, its originality lies in the operational dimension: Mr. Nyathi shows how a dignity-based approach can reshape practice. He proposes three complementary strategies—mainstreaming education as a humanitarian priority, ensuring safety in and around learning spaces, and treating education as reparation and recovery in post-conflict justice. Each reflects a rare capacity to bridge theory and action, law and humanity.
Timeliness and moral clarity
In a world where wars in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and the DRC have left millions of children out of school, this study is of burning relevance. It documents with precision the scale of attacks on education—6,000 incidents in two years—but its message transcends numbers: to deny education is to deny dignity and future.
Like Dunant, Mr. Nyathi refuses resignation before suffering. He insists that humanitarian law, properly interpreted, must preserve not only life but the possibility of a dignified life, even in war.
His reasoning remains realistic. While advocating a total ban on the military use of schools, he does not claim an absolute prohibition of attacks if a school becomes a lawful military objective. Rather, he argues that dignity must weigh decisively in proportionality assessments—an elegant synthesis of moral conviction and legal restraint.
Conclusion
Through meticulous research and profound humanism, Lisang Nyathi renews Henry Dunant’s message for our time: that law must serve the human person, and that even amid conflict, the pursuit of knowledge must endure. His work reminds us that protecting a school means protecting the dignity, hope, and humanity of the child.
Protecting education, he writes, is protecting humanity itself. In those words, the voice of Henry Dunant still resonates—urging us to believe that compassion, expressed through law, can change the world.
For his intellectual excellence, moral clarity, and unwavering compassion, the Henry Dunant Foundation thus proudly confers upon Mr. Lisang Nyathi the 2025 Henry Dunant Research Prize, with our warm congratulations.
Vidéo
Geneva Academy Graduation Ceremony 2025