The Laws of War

1956 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josef L. Kunz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Total War ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Full Circle

It seems that the development of the laws of war from the beginnings of our international law to the present day has completed a full circle. With the definitive decentralization of the medieval communitas Christiana and the coming into existence of the national sovereign state, wars appeared in which new methods for the conduct of war—armies of mercenaries on foot, invention of gunpowder—were combined with the deep ideological split between Catholics and Protestants. The wars of that time were conducted with the greatest cruelty and inhumanity, reaching their climax with the terrible Thirty Years’ War, which may well be called a total war.

The Chaotic Status of the Laws of War and the Urgent Necessity for Their Revision

1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josef L. Kunz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Wishful Thinking ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Total War ◽  
International Lawyer ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
Full Picture ◽  
The Law ◽  
Urgent Necessity

Once more, as he did sixteen years ago, this writer wants to raise his voice in order to point at the actual chaotic status of the laws of war, at the grave inherent dangers, and at the urgent necessity for the revision of this part of international law. The problem involves the very survival of our Western Christian civilization, if not of mankind. Under these circumstances it becomes the duty of an international lawyer to treat this subject, notwithstanding its “unpopularity” since 1920. It was Grotius who, under the impression of the “total war” of thirty years urged upon men the necessity of the “temperamenta belli.” It is amazing to see that the men of this generation, living under a more terrible total war, turn their backs upon the laws of war. This neglect is the outcome of different and often contradictory ideologies: indifference, apathy, over-optimistic wishful thinking, political wishes to keep one’s hands free in the next war, and pessimistic fatalism. All the arguments for this neglect are untenable, are in contradiction with the law as well as the facts; and yet, strong drives by writers and statesmen have nearly succeeded in putting over men a veil of voluntary blindness in adopting a policy of the ostrich which may lead to disaster, to the return of new and more terrible “dark ages.” A full exposé would need a book, not an article. But while no full picture can be given here, it will be attempted to give, at least, a complete sketch, dealing with the law and the facts, with the arguments pro and con.

Of Rebels, Insurgents, and Belligerents

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tilman Rodenhäuser
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
State Practice

The first chapter opens the substantive analysis of the organization requirement for non-state parties to armed conflicts. First, it briefly examines why the laws of war have originally been state-focused, and shows how this state focus coined international law requirements of main characteristics of a party to an armed conflict. Second, it analyses how philosophers broadened the legal notion of ‘war’ as to include conflicts involving certain non-state entities. Subsequently, this chapter examines state practice to identify which qualities a non-state armed group needed to possess to obtain the ‘belligerent’ status. It also examines the question of which kind of entities could qualify as ‘insurgents’ or ‘rebels’.

From Reprisals to Criminal Accountability: State Bias and the Prospects of Limiting War Through Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 365-388
Author(s):  
Pablo Kalmanovitz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Central Element ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Agents

Abstract Over the past 25 years, criminal prosecutions for war crimes have become a central element in the long-standing project of governing hostilities in international law. According to many, the threat of criminal prosecutions can be a general deterrent against violations of the laws of war, and can contribute more broadly to the diffusion and domestic appropriation of humanitarian norms. This article discusses some unintended effects of this “anti-impunity turn” in the laws of war in the context of non-international armed conflicts. Specifically, it examines the consequences of the fact that states typically have a monopoly over the means of legitimate criminal investigation for alleged crimes committed in their territory. Far from operating on a level playing field, criminal investigations in war contexts must be undertaken under institutional conditions that tend to favor state agents over non-state opposition groups. The article spells out some implications of this form of state bias and argues that it can contribute to exacerbate conflict and prolong violence in war.

Transfer of Property in Enemy Occupied Territory

1945 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Robinson
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Hague Convention ◽  
Military Occupation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Total War ◽  
Occupied Territory ◽  
Aerial Warfare ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
The Hague

International law was no more prepared for the dynamics of the present war than was the Maginot school of military strategy. International lawyers had given little serious thought to the legal problems which total war would bring. Consequently, while international arrangements were concluded on special questions (e.g. on aerial warfare), the main body of the 1907 Hague Convention, including the section dealing with military occupation,remained unchanged. Military occupation was still conceived of as a temporary phenomenon with limited objectives. But totalitarian warfare as waged by the Axis powers has had unlimited objectives, aimed at nothing less than the complete political and economic subjugation of the occupied territory. In practice the enemy has recognized no restraints of either law or custom save the threat of immediate retaliation. Far from “respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country,” as the Hague regulations require, the Axis has systematically destroyed the political and legal order in the occupied territories. It has substituted quislings in the place of duly constituted local authorities, and has employed them for economic as well as political ends.

International Law within the Israel Legal System

1990 ◽  
Vol 24 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 451-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Lapidoth
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Legal System ◽  
The State ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Military ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
High Seas

Since the establishment of the State and up to the present day, Israeli law has had to deal with a great number of various problems in the field of international law, e.g. whether the State of Israel is a successor to the obligations of the Mandatory government; the jurisdiction of the Israeli courts with regard to offences committed in demilitarized zones or beyond the State's boundaries (on the high seas or abroad); the immunity of foreign states and their representatives from the jurisdiction of Israeli courts and from measures of execution; the status of international organizations and of their employees; the effect and implications of official acts performed within the territory of a state which is at war with Israel; the effect of international treaties in Israel; the question whether the Eastern neighbourhoods of Jerusalem are part of Israel; various issues concerning extradition, and of course, many questions regarding the laws of war: the powers of the military governor, and in particular his power to expropriate land in the territories under Israeli control and to expel residents from the territories, the extent of his legislative powers, etc.

scholarly journals The Phoenix of Colonial War: Race, the Laws of War, and the ‘Horror on the Rhine’

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 847-875 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROTEM GILADI
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Black Soldiers ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Imperial Governance ◽  
The Phoenix

AbstractThe article explores the demise of the ‘colonial war’ category through the employment of French colonial troops, under the 1918 armistice, to occupy the German Rhineland.It traces the prevalence of – and the anxieties underpinning –antebellumdoctrine on using ‘Barbarous Forces’ in ‘European’ war. It then records the silence ofpostbellumscholars on the ‘horror on the Rhine’ – orchestrated allegations of rape framed in racialized terms of humanity and the requirements of the law of civilized warfare. Among possible explanations for this silence, the article follows recent literature that considers this scandal as the embodiment of crises in masculinity, white domination, and European civilization.These crises, like the scandal itself, expressedantebellumjurisprudential anxieties about the capacity – and implications – of black soldiers being ‘drilled white’. They also deprivedpostbellumlawyers of the vocabulary necessary to address what they signified: breakdown of the laws of war; evident, self-inflicted European barbarity; and the collapse of international law itself, embodied by the VersaillesDiktattreating Germany – as Smuts warned, ‘as we would not treat akaffirnation’ – as a colonial ‘object’, as Schmitt lamented.Last, the article traces the resurgence of ‘colonial war’. It reveals how, at the moment of collapse, in the very instrument embodying it, the category found a new life. Article 22(5) of the League of Nations Covenant (the Covenant) reasserted control over the colonial object, furnishing international lawyers with a new vocabulary to address the employment of colonial troops – yet, now, as part of the ‘law of peace’. Reclassified, both rule and category re-emerged, were codified, and institutionalized imperial governance.

scholarly journals Recognition in international law: The case of Kosovo and Metohija

2015 ◽  
pp. 289-306
Author(s):  
Tijana Surlan
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Constitutive Theory ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
The North ◽  
Official Position ◽  
The Status ◽  
North Part ◽  
The Eu

Recognition is an instrument of the public international law founded in the classical international law. Still, it preserves its main characteristics formed in the period when states dominated as the only legal persons in international community. Nevertheless, the instrument of recognition is today as vibrant as ever. As long as it does not have a uniform legal definition and means of application, it leaves room to be applied to very specific cases. In this paper, the instrument of recognition is elaborated from two aspects - theoretical and practical. First (theoretical) part of the paper presents main characteristics of the notion of recognition, as presented in main international law theories - declaratory and constitutive theory. Other part of the paper is focused on the recognition in the case of Kosovo. Within this part, main constitutive elements of state are elaborated, with special attention to Kosovo as self-proclaimed state. Conclusion is that Kosovo does not fulfill main constitutive elements of state. It is not an independent and sovereign state. It is in the status of internationalized entity, with four international missions on the field with competencies in the major fields of state authority - police, judiciary system, prosecution system, army, human rights, etc. Main normative framework for the status of Kosovo is still the UN Resolution 1244. It is also the legal ground for international missions, confirming non-independent status of Kosovo. States that recognized Kosovo despite this deficiency promote the constitutive theory of recognition, while states not recognizing Kosovo promote declaratory theory. Brussels Agreement, signed by representatives of Serbia and Kosovo under the auspices of the EU, has also been elaborated through the notion of recognition - (1) whether it represents recognition; (2) from the perspective of consequences it provokes in relations between Belgrade and Pristina. Official position of Serbian Government is clear - Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state. On the other hand, subject matter of Brussels Agreement creates new means of improvement for Kosovo authorities in the north part of Kosovo. Thus, Serbian position regarding the recognition is twofold - it does not recognize Kosovo in foro externo, and it completes its competences in foro domestico. What has been underlined through the paper and confirmed in the conclusion is that there is not a recognition which has the power to create a state and there is not a non-recognition which has the power to annul a state.

Reduced Legal Equality of Combatants in War

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-465
Author(s):  
Philipp Gisbertz-Astolfi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Ethics Of War ◽  
Legal Equality ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe focus on the moral rights of combatants in the ethics of war ignores a very important point: although morally unjust combatants cannot be considered moral equals to just combatants, especially with regard to the right to kill, there are sound moral reasons why the laws of war should accept a kind of equality between them, a concept referred to as “reduced legal equality.” Reduced legal equality is not about equal moral rights but about granting legal immunity to combatants for their conduct in accordance with the laws of war. This article shows that reduced legal equality of combatants is not only the morally best legal regulation in our nonideal international world but also the correct interpretation of international law.

‘What, Then, of the Land’?: Territoriality, International Law, and the Republic of New Afrika

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Sam Klug
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Society ◽  
National Development ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Postcolonial States ◽  
International Legal Personality

Abstract This article charts how African American appeals to international law shifted away from a politics of petition to a politics of sovereignty with the growing influence of postcolonial states in international society and the UN’s recognition of a right to self-determination. Whereas earlier efforts by African-descended peoples in the Americas to gain a hearing before international bodies often required pushing the boundaries of international legal personality to include entities other than states, in the late 1960s and early 1970s a black nationalist group called the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) pursued international subjectivity in its traditional and fullest form: as a sovereign state. Examining the writings of RNA leaders, especially Imari Obadele, this article explores how the group’s claims for territory, reparations, and international subjectivity relied on international legal discourse about plebiscites, self-determination, and national development.

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