International Humanitarian Law

• Legal Foundations

• Historical Developments

• Current Issues

What Is IHL?

• Customary Law• Opinio juris: belief + state practice

• Treaty Law• Geneva Law• Hague Law

• Domestic Enactments • Rules of Engagement

Why Create IHL?

• 1. Restraint

• 2. Protect Innocents

• 3. Professionalize Militaries

• 4. Shift decisionmaking authority

• 5. Lock in Strategic Advantages

• 6. Legitimization

IHL Principles

• 1. Military necessity

The right to use measures not otherwise forbidden that are indispensible for securing complete and quick submission of the enemy

IHL Principles

• 2. Humanity• Treatments of others based on loyalty, honor,

justice, and courage• No unnecessary suffering

IHL Principles

• 3. Distinction/ Discrimination• When directing attacks, combatants must

distinguish between combatants/ military objects and civilian persons/ civilian objects

IHL Principles

• 4. Proportionality • No attacks which may be expected to cause

incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which may be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated

Modern History of IHL

• Driven by witnesses, war correspondents, and photographers

Geneva Conventions

• Dunant sparks private relief committees

• Becomes the ICRC

• 1906 Geneva Convention• Focus on sick & wounded and POWs

• 1929 Geneva Convention

• 1949 Geneva Convention• Expand to civilians• Common article 3

Geneva Conventions

• Additional Protocols of 1977• Expand civilian protections• Create environmental protections• US not ratify

• Distinctive emblems 2005

HaGue Law

• Post Crimean war: Russian leadership

Focus on combatants • 1868 St Petersburg Declaration• 1874 Brussels Convention• 1898 Hague Convention • 1899 & 1907 Hague Conventions

• Ban asphyxiating gas, dum dum bullets, lead balloons

• Laws & customs of war on land: combatants and POWs

Hague Law

Martens Clause

Until a more complete code of the laws of war is issued, the High Contracting Parties think it right to declare that in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, populations and belligerents remain under the protection and empire of the principles of international law, as they result from the usages established between civilized nations, from the laws of humanity and the requirements of the public conscience.

Current Issues

• What issues are being debated?

which rules: characterizing conflict & participants

detention: length of stay & treatment

transparency of legal interpretations

emergence of new weapon systems

Current Issues

• Potentially Emerging IHL