An ancient body of law
As explained in the “Why HD-Human Dignity” section, this project is starting with the law most specifically protecting human dignity in times of war.
This body of law, called “international humanitarian law”, or “the laws of war”, or “the law of armed conflict”, was designed to protect those who do not fight, called as a whole “civilians”.
Its contemporary version is embodied in the famous Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their 1977 addendums called “Additional Protocols” (no need to keep all of this in mind! 😉).
But the idea to control war and its effects have always been around, since the beginning of humanity. Yes war has been there for a long time indeed, sadly.
And the foundations of “modern” contemporary humanitarian law can be found in quite ancient texts all over the world, as shown in the picture below.
A Right of a Lesser Evil: Better than Nothing
Of course, that does not mean that humanitarian law cautions war. The United Nations Charter’s task is to preserve peace and when it fails to do so, something must be done. It thus takes war – very pragmatically – as a state of facts sadly very likely to occur and attempts to minimise human suffering.
| “The preferred state being peace which, one might say, is temporarily ‘suspended’ when war breaks out. International humanitarian law is what we fall back on to fill the gap. It is better than nothing.” Mr René Kosirnik, Deputy Director of International Law and Policy, ICRC, Round Table on “Preventive Action”, Copenhagen, 2-4 November 1997. |
In a nutshell, humanitarian law is a balance between two things: humanitarian considerations on one side, military necessity on the other. Humanitarian considerations dictate that civilians must be protected, as well as civilian buildings such as hospitals, schools, places of worship, and that everything must be done to reduce human suffering. Military necessity is equally important in the balance, it takes war as a fact, and also that the parties to the conflict have a goal: overpowering the “enemy”.
And this is – as we all see – a difficult balance to maintain.
IHL attempts to keep it as good as possible, by:
1. Protecting those who are not, or who are no longer, taking part in hostilities.
People who are not taking part in the fighting, adversaries who have surrendered, adversaries who have been captured, adversaries who are injured or sick.
2. Regulating means and methods of warfare.
Restrictions on the ability to destroy, the choice of weapons, and the means of waging war: what can be attacked, what weapons may be used, what precautions must be taken to reduce the number of civilian casualties, etc.
And beyond all the rules, conventions are other complicated texts, it is in fact quite easy to understand as explained in one design in particular: “War is for warriors, not civilians”. It only takes a few rules and principles and some common sense!
Yet difficult to apply in practice, because “common sense” is not always the priority for those waging war…mainly because of political and economical reasons (States sometime have reasons that the reason ignores).
Simple Law
| “The law of armed conflicts is simple law: with a little common sense and a degree of clear-sightedness, anyone can grasp its basic tenets for himself without being a legal expert”. Pr. Eric David, Principes de droit des conflits armés, Ed. Bruylant, 2008. |
Additional resources
What can I say, while there are plenty of resources available, I’ll direct you for this specific topic to the “mother institution”: the International Committee of the Red Cross, starting with this simple video I contributed to at the time for its legal content, to make it accessible.