How does war affect mental health? And is international law equipped to recognise and address these harms? In this episode, Katharine and Florian speak with Lyla Schwartz, Program & Psychology Director at Poma Global and Researcher at the University of Basel, and Samantha Holmes, Researcher at the Beyond Compliance Consortium at the University of York’s Centre for Applied Human Rights. Cited Documents: Holmes, Samantha, Incidental mental harm through a decolonial lens: A culturally and contextually sensitive implementation of the principle of proportionality, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 108, No. 932, 2026. Lway Mownt, Noon, Holmes, Samantha, Rush, Chris and Weigand, Florian, Between Aftershocks & Airstrikes in Myanmar – Accounts of Compounding Harm + Need, Armed Groups and International Law, July 2025. Holmes, Samantha, War is not skin deep – International Humanitarian Law and mental health, Armed Groups and International Law, October 2024. Schwartz, Lyla, Hassanpoor, Zainab, Lane, Hannah and Klapheke, Elizabeth, Economic constraints and gendered rules: Understanding women’s perspectives of how government-imposed restrictions impact women’s mental health and social wellbeing across Afghanistan, SSM - Mental Health, Vol. 6, 2024. Schwartz, Lyla, Nakonechna, Mariia, Campbell, Georgina, Brunner, Donja, Stadler, Christina, Schmid, Marc, Fegert, Jörg M. and Bürgin, David, Addressing the mental health needs and burdens of children fleeing war: a field update from ongoing mental health and psychosocial support efforts at the Ukrainian border, European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 13 (2), 2022. Guest Bios: Samantha Holmes is a Research Associate at the York Law School and the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) at the University of York. She is also a member of the Beyond Compliance Consortium’s research programme “Building Evidence on Promoting Restraint by Armed Actors”. Her international humanitarian and human rights law research is informed and underpinned by her extensive human rights work across Southeast Asia. Her ongoing research focuses on the impacts of war on mental wellbeing and how the law can prevent mental harm. Samantha holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law and Practice from the University of York, and an LLB from Queen Mary University of London. Lyla Schwartz is a PhD Candidate at the University of Basel, Switzerland, focusing on the mental health of refugees. She is a psychotherapist and clinical researcher with over a decade of experience supporting individuals, families, and communities through trauma, stress, and life transitions. Lyla has extensive field work experience in India, Peru, South Africa, Greece and Afghanistan. Specifically she has spent four years in Kabul, where she founded the organization Peace of Mind, providing services traumatized children. The Beyond Compliance Consortium is a co-productive, socio-legal research partnership that traverses the fields of international law, conflict studies, humanitarian protection work and human rights policy, and brings together these communities of scholarship and practice with people with lived experience of conflict. It is funded by UK International Development. The second season is funded by UK International Development, while the first season was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in human rights law and international humanitarian law at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University. Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups.
