Injecting Human Rights Into International Humanitarian Law: Least Harmful Means as a Principle Governing Armed Conflicts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Monserrat Flores Villacís
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Clarke

In an attempt to impose limits on the level of acceptable incidental civilian suffering during armed conflict, international humanitarian law (IHL) articulates a proportionality formula as the test to determine whether or not an attack is lawful. Efforts to comply with that formula during the conduct of hostilities can involve a host of legal and operational challenges. These challenges have inspired a growing body of doctrinal and empirical research. A recent international conference in Jerusalem, co-sponsored by the Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Israel and the Occupied Territories and the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, brought together human rights lawyers, military experts and scholars from a variety of disciplines to assess recent developments relating to the proportionality principle in international humanitarian law. This report examines ten conference presentations which offer important insights into: the nature, scope of application and operational requirements of the proportionality principle under IHL; the modalities of investigation and review of proportionality decisions; and the challenges involved in proportionality decision-making.


2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cordula Droege

International human rights law and international humanitarian law are traditionally two distinct branches of law, one dealing with the protection of persons from abusive power, the other with the conduct of parties to an armed conflict. Yet, developments in international and national jurisprudence and practice have led to the recognition that these two bodies of law not only share a common humanist ideal of dignity and integrity but overlap substantially in practice. The most frequent examples are situations of occupation or non-international armed conflicts where human rights law complements the protection provided by humanitarian law.This article provides an overview of the historical developments that led to the increasing overlap between human rights law and humanitarian law. It then seeks to analyse the ways in which the interplay between human rights law and humanitarian law can work in practice. It argues that two main concepts inform their interaction: The first is complementarity between their norms in the sense that in most cases, especially for the protection of persons in the power of a party to the conflict, they mutually reinforce each other. The second is the principle of lex specialis in the cases of conflict between the norms.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (32) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Sidney Cesar Silva Guerra ◽  
Luz E. Nagle ◽  
Ádria Saviano Fabricio da Silva

This article aims to revisit the interrelationship between International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL), in honour of their respective normative scopes and in order to carry out an analysis of their complementary or supplementary application, towards the construction of a more appropriate tool for the protection of human beings in extreme situations, as it occurs during armed conflicts. This is because, amid the multifaceted vulnerabilities that accumulate in today's conflicts, it is essential to provide the most effective source of protection - proportional to the demands for protection that are manifested today, particularly in military occupations around the world, whose occurrence will be the focus of this research. As for the method of approach concerning the logical basis of the investigation, the hypothetical-deductive method was selected, insofar as the corroboration or falsification of the main hypothesis about the effective complementary and harmonious application of IHRL will be tested to cases of human rights violations in International Armed Conflicts in the military occupation modality. Given this framework, the core of this work lies in the understanding of the praxis for the complementary application of both aspects in armed conflicts, considering not only International Human Rights Law as lex generalis, but their effective overlap to the detriment of International Humanitarian Law, when it is most beneficial to human protection in the cases of Military Occupations.


Author(s):  
Kleffner Jann K

This chapter explains the application of human rights in armed conflicts. International humanitarian law has much in common with the law of human rights, since both bodies of rules are concerned with the protection of the individual. Nevertheless, there are important differences between them. Human rights law is designed to operate primarily in normal peacetime conditions, and governs the vertical legal relationship between a state and its citizens and other persons subject to its jurisdiction. Human rights law applies primarily within the territory of the state that is subject to the human rights obligation in question. International humanitarian law, by contrast, is specifically designed to regulate situations of armed conflict. These differences between human rights law and international humanitarian law have led some to argue that human rights law is only intended to be applicable in time of peace. However, it is now generally accepted that human rights continue to apply during armed conflict. Hence, international humanitarian law and human rights law can apply simultaneously in situations of armed conflict.


2012 ◽  
Vol 94 (886) ◽  
pp. 739-763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Lyons

AbstractSince the launch of the first commercial very high resolution satellite sensor in 1999 there has been a growing awareness and application of space technology for the remote identification of potential violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. As examined in the three cases of armed conflict in Gaza, Georgia, and Sri Lanka, analysis of satellite imagery was able to provide investigators with independent, verifiable, and compelling evidence of serious violations of international humanitarian law. Also examined are the important limitations to such imagery-based analysis, including the larger technical, analytical, and political challenges facing the humanitarian and human rights community for conducting satellite-based analysis in the future.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilia Maria Siatitsa ◽  
Maia Titberidze

The debate concerning the interrelation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law is certainly not new within the relevant academic circles. Nevertheless, a comprehensive study of recent State practice in the UN political bodies, that puts the opposition to the applicability of human rights to a real test, adds a new and rather intriguing twist to the matter. It appears that the statements of governments arguing for the exclusive application of international humanitarian law in armed conflicts are not always supported by their own practice within the UN political bodies. The present article explores the potential influence and importance of this observation for bridging the possible gaps between these two bodies of international law. It further identifies a number of interesting trends in the application of specific human rights norms in armed conflicts.


2009 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 435-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cordula Droege ◽  
Louise Arimatsu

On 24–25 September 2009, the Faculty of Laws, University College London and the International Humanitarian Law Project, London School of Economics held a conference in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross entitled ‘The European Convention on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law’.Armed conflict situations (including belligerent occupations) have increasingly become the subject of litigation before national courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). As a result, there is now a substantial body of case-law on the application of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in armed conflict situations. The ECtHR has had to engage with questions involving situations of armed conflict and occupation since the Turkish intervention in Northern Cyprus in the 1970s. The increasing resort to the ECHR by claimants whose rights have allegedly been violated in contemporary armed conflicts and occupations, raise new and complex questions of law. To what extent does the ECHR, as a human rights legal regime, apply in such situations, especially when alleged violations have been perpetrated abroad? How does the ECHR interact with international humanitarian law (IHL)?


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 193-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Kalmanovitz

In recent debates about the interplay between international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights law (IHRL), two broad camps have emerged. On the one hand, defenders of what may be called the convergence thesis have emphasized the inclusion of basic rights protections in the so-called “Geneva instruments” of IHL, as well as the role of human rights bodies in interpreting and amplifying rights protections in IHL through juridical or quasi-juridical interpretation and pronouncements. In armed conflicts, it is said, human rights apply concurrently and in ways that strengthen the protective constraints of IHL. Critics of the convergence thesis, on the other hand, have protested that pressing human rights obligations on state forces misunderstands the nature of both IHL and IHRL, and generates misplaced and impossibly onerous demands on belligerents—ultimately and perversely, the effect of emphasizing convergence may be less, not more, human rights protection.


1988 ◽  
Vol 28 (265) ◽  
pp. 367-378
Author(s):  
Jovića Patrnogic

From the beginning of the 20th century up to the present, international law has been marked by a profound evolution: it has been progressively humanized. Those responsible for drafting international law have clearly understood that it could no longer disregard the fate of human beings and leave to States and their internal laws the protection of fundamental human rights, both in peacetime and during armed conflicts.


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