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It has been accepted since antiquity that some restraint should be observed during armed conflict. This book examines the apparent dichotomy and introduces any study of the law of armed conflict by considering the nature and legality of war. The purpose of what is known as the law of armed conflict or, more commonly, the law of war is to reduce the horrors inherent therein to the greatest extent possible, bearing in mind the political purpose for which the war is fought, namely to achieve one's policies over one's enemies. The discussion on the history and sources of the law of armed conflict pays most attention to warfare on land because that is the region for which most agreements have been drawn up, although attention has been accorded to both aerial and naval warfare where it has been considered necessary. Traditionally, international law was divided into the law of war and the law of peace, with no intermediate stage between. Although diplomatic relations between belligerents are normally severed once a conflict has commenced, there remain a number of issues, not all of which are concerned with their inter-belligerent relations, which require them to remain in contact. War crimes are violations of the and customs of the law of armed conflict and are punishable whether committed by combatants or civilians, including the nationals of neutral states. The book also talks about the rights and duties of the Occupying Power, civil defence, branches of international law and prisoners of war.
unnoticed in mainstream public discourse despite having no legal basis or strictly agreed upon definition. Supposed to allow the unobstructed deployment of humanitarian aid and/or the evacuation of civilians, humanitarian corridors have most frequently been used in contexts of armed conflicts to secure passage through disputed territory. Their existence is grounded in what constitutes a core objective of the law of war: protecting civilian populations from military operations. But the fact that they are by definition temporary and limited in geographical scope
reminder that the laws of war ( jus in bello ) are first and foremost the business of the belligerents – the political powers – and that the terms of humanitarian conventions have always been negotiated by plenipotentiaries and generals from the signatory states. Such laws are not just the work of visionary philanthropists, as making Henry Dunant their face suggests, but evidence of the militarisation of charitable organisations. The Red Cross societies ‘have been considered a
ethical positioning that brings into question all forms of violence, most especially the legitimate violence constituted through the force of law. Denying the constituted embodiment of life, lawful violence is dehumanising. This in turn gives rise to claims about the universal rights of humans in international law and its associative laws of war. Violence is the Result of Underdevelopment Domesticated in the shadow of juridical power by the threat of incarceration, critics of the previous position might also point to our shared material gains and sense of
( Los Angeles : Sage ), pp. 77 – 101 . Bridges , K. M. ( 2010 ), ‘ Between Aid and Politics: Diagnosing the Challenge of Humanitarian Advocacy in Politically Complex Environments – the Case of Darfur, Sudan ’, Third World Quarterly , 31 : 8 , 1251 – 69 . Brooks , J. ( 2015 ), Humanitarians Under Attack: Tensions, Disparities, and Legal Gaps in Protection . Harvard Humanitarian Initiative Cambridge, MA . Bussmann , M. and Schneider , G. ( 2016 ), ‘ A Porous Humanitarian Shield: The Laws of War, the Red Cross, and the Killing of Civilians
. Traditionally, international law was divided into the law of war and the law of peace, with no intermediate stage between. 1 When hostilities began, usually following a declaration of war, 2 and non-parties to the conflict were held by the belligerents to be subject to the duties of, and they claimed the rights pertaining to, neutrals, 3 war was recognised and the law of war came into operation. Frequently
conflict-of-rights philosophy of neutrality, in effect, took this line of reasoning and extended it even-handedly to both belligerents. Necessity has been retained as the driving force at the heart of this approach to the laws of war – and it has remained the central feature of the code-of-conduct philosophy to the present day. For this reason, the approach may justly be labelled
violations of the laws of war. Beyond Nuremburg and Tokyo: responses to ethnic cleansing and genocide after the Cold War The ICTY and the ICTR were the first mechanisms for international criminal justice since the post-World War II Nuremburg and Tokyo Tribunals. Although heavily criticised, both at the time and in later years, especially over
culture’, as Weizman put it, 23 has a long history. As what follows shows, this history is at least partially linked to the increasing role of scientists and the importance of the expert figure in both the field of justice and that of war and humanitarian practice from the end of the nineteenth century onwards. Indeed, the emergence of an international law of war which provides for the regulation of the use of violence and
The classical position One of the oldest rules of the law of war provides for the protection of the civilian noncombatant population and forbids making civilians the direct object of attack. 1 This rule appears in the Hague Regulations’ ban on the bombardment of undefended places, the requirement that an attacking officer should