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[email protected] lauramovesyou.com SCAN FOR LISTINGS Raising the Bar in Real Estate Performance. Excellence You Can See. Results You Can Feel. Caring Globally, Researching Locally: Resources on International Humanitarian Law Kurt X. Metzmeier With war raging in Ukraine and Gaza and tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela play- ing out in air strikes in the Caribbean Sea, questions about the scope of international hu- manitarian law are unavoidable. Meanwhile, the world’s military lawyers grapple with how these issues raised by these wars factor into joint operations and other collective actions. In the U.S., these conflicts are barely covered by the press anymore, which is absorbed in domestic events. Churches, college student groups and peace organizations look on in dismay as international institutions appear to be incapable of effective action to protect civilian populations caught up in these wars. As lawyers, we tend to listen to these issues being discussed with a skeptical ear unless we hear someone join an actual international law to a persuasive argument. After all, most of us have lived through wars with catastrophic claims of imminent use of “weapons of mass destruction” or that our adversary is part of an “axis of evil,” rhetoric later found to be untrue or exaggerated. This article is going to leave aside these claims and show you where to find the law. Resources: International Committee of the Red Cross International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been at the forefront of promoting and implementing humanitarian law since its founders organized the Geneva Convention of 1863 which adopted the first articles defin- ing standards of lawful warfare and crimes of war. Because of its unique history, its website hosts a vital repository of legal materials, the International Humanitarian Law Databases (https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en). This site is organized under three headers: Treaties, Customary Law and National Practice. The core collection of Treaties includes the currently operative 1949 Geneva Convention and the 1977 and 2005 Protocols, but there are also collections of related international agreements and historical treaties (https:// ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/geneva- conventions-1949additional-protocols-and- their-commentaries). The Customary IHL tab (https://ihl-databases. icrc.org/en/customary-ihl) is deceptively useful—especially its Rules tab, which is effectively an authoritative encyclopedia of humanitarian law, organized by topic with references to all the treaty materials related to the subject. For example, if you look at Rule 76, Herbicides, you see that while the use of these chemicals in warfare is not expressly prohibited, their use may violate certain UN resolutions, which are cited, and may come under other provisions, like prohibition on attacking objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, which is referenced. The Practice tab of the Customary IHL page is also very useful as it allows you to search by the name of a nation to find UN resolutions specifically referencing that country, as well as official statements they make to formally declare that a particular treaty provision can- not apply to them under their national law. The Sources tab directs you to the text of all relevant treaties and references statements of national laws found in military manuals, national laws and national case law. Humani- tarian law is not just an ideal, it is integrated into the core documents of military law and the rules of engagement for most of the na- tions of the world. This is not just a matter of ethical principle, it is also self-interest. The world’s generals don’t want their captive sol- diers mistreated nor do they want their forces involved in banned acts of warfare. Full-text versions of this original source material are also collected under the National Practices tab of the main Customary IHL page, and it is searchable by nation, type of practice or material and date. (The documents are not always in English.) International Court of Justice (ICJ) Another important place to look for informa- tion on humanitarian law is on the websites of the two bodies that administer international law, the International Court of Justice which resolves legal conflicts between nation-states, and the International Criminal Court (ICC), which prosecutes individuals when that court (Continued on next page)
2025 11 November
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