Dr Giovanni Mantilla

Theoretically, I am interested in the operation of multilateralism, particularly practices of social pressure and pressure management in diplomacy, global governance, and international legal processes. Empirically, my research has investigated the politics of international lawmaking through multinational archival research, with emphasis (so far) on the international law of armed conflict, human rights law, and weapons regulation.

Key publications: 

Books

Mantilla, Giovanni. Lawmaking under Pressure: International Humanitarian Law and Internal Armed Conflict. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press (2020).

• Winner of the Lieber Prize (2021) as the best book on the law of armed conflict (American Society of International Law).
• Honorable Mention (runner-up), Best Book in International Collaboration (International Collaboration Section, American Political Science Association).
   

Articles and Book Chapters

• Mantilla, Giovanni. “Stealth Change: How the United States and the United Kingdom Embraced International Humanitarian Limits on Nuclear Use.” Security Studies, 2026. Open Access. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09636412.2025.2592567 
• Kinsella, Helen M., and Giovanni Mantilla. “Historical Approaches and Archival Work in Norms Research.” In The Oxford Handbook of Norms Research in International Relations, edited by Phil Orchard, Antje Wiener, and Sassan Gholiagha. New York: Oxford University Press, 2025.
• Mantilla, Giovanni, “Universality amid Contestation: International Humanitarian Law since 1949.” In From the Battle of Solferino to the Geneva Conventions of 1949: Challenges and Future Prospects of International Humanitarian Law, proceedings of the 47th Round Table on Current Issues of International Humanitarian Law, Sanremo (Italy,) 12‒13 September 2024, edited by Marco Pedrazzi, 161-166. Rome: Paesi Edizioni, 2025.
• Mantilla, Giovanni. “From Treaty to Custom: Shifting Paths in the Recent Development of International Humanitarian Law.” Leiden Journal of International Law 37, no. 2 (2024): 359–78.
• Mantilla, Giovanni. “Deflective Cooperation: Social Pressure and Forum Management in Cold War Conventional Arms Control.” International Organization 77, no. 3 (2023): 564-98.
• Mantilla, Giovanni, and Carsten-Andreas Schulz. “The Turn to the History of International Law in the Discipline of International Relations.” In Cambridge History of International Law, Volume I, edited by Anne Peters and Randall Lesaffer, 136–61. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2024.
• Mantilla, Giovanni. “The Politics of Armed Non-State Groups’ and the Codification of International Humanitarian Law” in Armed Groups and International Law: In the Shadowland of Legality and Illegality, Katharine Fortin and Ezequiel Heffes, eds. Edward Elgar Publishing (2023).
• Kinsella, Helen M, and Giovanni Mantilla. “Contestation before Compliance: History, Politics, and Power in International Humanitarian Law.” International Studies Quarterly 64, no. 3 (2020): 649–56.
• Mantilla, Giovanni. “Social Pressure and the Making of Wartime Civilian Protection Rules.” European Journal of International Relations 26, no. 2 (2020): 443– 468.
• Mantilla, Giovanni. “The Protagonism of the USSR and Socialist States in the Revision of International Humanitarian Law (IHL).” Journal of the History of International Law 21, no. 2 (2019): 181–211.
• Mantilla, Giovanni. “Forum Isolation: Social Opprobrium and the Origins of the International Law of Internal Conflict.” International Organization 72, no. 2 (2018): 317–49.
• Mantilla, Giovanni. “Conforming Instrumentalists: Why the USA and the United Kingdom Joined the 1949 Geneva Conventions.” European Journal of International Law 28, no. 2 (2017): 483–511.
• Mantilla, Giovanni, “The Origins and Development of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Additional Protocols,” in Do the Geneva Conventions Matter?, Matthew Evangelista and Nina Tannenwald, eds. Oxford University Press (2017).
• Mantilla, Giovanni. “Emerging International Human Rights Norms for Transnational Corporations.” Global Governance 15, no. 2 (2009): 279-298.
• Mantilla, Giovanni. “Constructing codes and broadening agendas: the case of Asocolflores, the Colombian Flower Exporters Association” in Embedding Human Rights in Business Practices II, New York: United Nations Global Compact and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008). Pp. 71-80.
• Mantilla, Giovanni. Gubernamentalidad y Seguridad Democrática: Una aproximación a las prácticas de seguridad democrática en Colombia desde la filosofía política de Michel Foucault (Governmentality and Democratic Security: a Foucauldian approach to security practices in Colombia.) Documento Ceso 107. Bogotá: CESO-Universidad de los Andes Press (2006).
• Mantilla, Giovanni and Alexandra Guáqueta. “Cómo manejar riesgos de seguridad y construir paz al mismo tiempo?” (How to manage security risks and build peace at the same time) in Revista EAN, 55, no. 4 (2005): 39-49. 
• Mantilla, Giovanni. “Gobernar y Asegurar: una lectura crítica de la Seguridad Democrática en Colombia desde la filosofía política de Michel Foucault” (Governing and Surveilling: A Foucaldian Critique of the Policy of Democratic Security in Colombia) in Colombia Internacional 60, no. 2 (2004): 156-175.