I would like to thank everyone who has accompanied and supported me on the long journey to the completion of this book. Special thanks go to my doctoral supervisor, Prof. Jörg Künzli, for his expertise and guidance, to Prof. Judith Wyttenbach for her second supervision and to the many practitioners with whom I was able to exchange ideas during the writing of this book. Finally, I would like to thank the Swiss National Science Foundation for its financial support for the open access publication of this book.
I dedicate this book to all civilians who depend on humanitarian assistance in armed conflicts and who suffer the consequences of arbitrary withholding of consent to humanitarian relief. I hope that the considerations and reasoning in this book will help to improve their situation in the future.…This is an inaugural dissertation for obtaining the degree of Doctor iurs from the Faculty of Law of the University of Bern. The Faculty accepted this thesis on 27 May 2021 at the request of the two supervisors, Prof. Dr. Jörg Künzli (first supervisor) and Prof. Dr Judith Wyttenbach (second supervisor).