Our newest story in focus series – Meet the Makers will shift the focus on our team members who play key roles on the different elements of our conflict and hunger work. The latest in the series is Morgan Hess, who is an Intern with GRC.

Q1: Tell us a little about yourself.

My name’s Morgan, and I grew up in Colorado, United States, right at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It’s the most enchanting place – wide open and vast, with a great deal of large wildlife! I’m currently getting my law degree from Vanderbilt University..

Q2: What did you want to be when you grew up?

Both of my parents are engineers, so when I was little, I always thought I would be an engineer too! However, I soon discovered I was rubbish at math, so that plan was quickly nixed. I’m the first aspiring lawyer in my family, and I think everyone was confused about where that came from.

Q3: What was your first job?

I got my first job when I was thirteen, as an assistant teacher at my Irish dance school. I taught a bunch of excited and rambunctious young children, and it was a good lesson in patience and taking things one step at a time!

Q4: What are you working on now?

My current work with the Starvation Project has involved a lot of research into potential mechanisms to punish starvation conduct, and how they could be used. Recently, I got to investigate and write about collective punishment, a crime under customary international law that is very under-used by international courts, and its potential for prosecuting sieges – which is substantial.

Q5: What do you love most about this work?

I’ve most enjoyed being taken into new and unfamiliar fields by this work – many of the crimes that could be used to prosecute starvation are ones I haven’t yet had the opportunity to study, and haven’t been used frequently by international tribunals. It’s also a very intriguing task to apply various war crimes to cases of starvation, as many of them have also not been used in this way before.

Q6: What is the most challenging part?

Reading explicit reports and cases about starvation and other war crimes can be difficult, especially when you’re doing it every single day. It’s easy to feel a bit hopeless encountering the worst side of humanity constantly, especially when cases of starvation are currently ongoing and have been continuing for some time. However, it’s extraordinarily encouraging to see and be a part of the determined work of the team at GRC, and even more heartening to see what the team has accomplished so far!

Q7: What would be the one thing that surprised you about the work on conflict and hunger?

I’ve been perpetually surprised by how few legal mechanisms there are at the international level that deal explicitly with starvation. So far, no international tribunal has adjudicated on starvation as a distinct crime, and starvation was only criminalized in the Rome Statute in non-international conflicts in 2019. In most cases, starvation of civilians has been prosecuted via alternative crimes, such as inhuman or cruel treatment, deportation, and pillage, and I’m glad to see starvation gain more attention as a distinct crime in the last few years.

Q8: Tell us a surprising or a fun fact about you.

I love winter! The colder and snowier, the better. I grew up cross-country skiing in the Colorado mountains, and cold and snow bring back happy memories.