The Syrian civil war is an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict in Syria in which international interventions have taken place. The war grew out of the unrest of the 2011 Arab Spring and escalated to armed conflict after President Bashar al-Assad’s government violently repressed protests calling for his removal. Violence in Syria has escalated amid an absence of meaningful efforts to end the war. A confidential list of individuals and units are believed to be responsible for crimes against humanity, breaches of international humanitarian law and gross human rights violations. We have created a Library Special on the Syrian civil war in order to provide you easy access to our collection. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask the librarian: r.steenhard@ppl.nl

With it’s recent decision to honour the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Nobel Committee has sent a powerful message of concern that should be attached to nuclear weapons. It comes at a moment when North Korea is actively developing its nuclear programme, the fate of the Iran nuclear deal is in the balance, and the United States and Russia are both seeking to modernise their nuclear forces. ICAN campaigned for the drafting of an entirely new disarmament agreement – the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – that was opened for signature at the United Nations in July this year. We have created a Library special on nuclear disarmament in order to provide you easy access to our collection.