The overarching principle of humanity in international humanitarian law (IHL), which entails the prohibition of unnecessary suffering, the right to humane treatment and respect for human dignity during armed conflicts, constitutes a key guiding principle for the conduct of hostilities. As military decision-making becomes increasingly determined by artificial intelligence (AI), and the growing use of AI-enabled systems in modern warfare raises ethical and legal concerns over the erosion of human oversight and increasing civilian harm, the principle of humanity offers a critical perspective for assessing whether these technologies preserve or undermine the human-centred foundations of IHL.

This article interrogates whether the use of AI decision support systems (AI-DSS) in armed conflict poses a threat to or reinforces the principle of humanity in IHL. It analyzes the principle of humanity within the framework of IHL, focusing on its legal relevance and broad scope of application in its purpose of protecting life and health and ensuring respect for the human person. From there, the article delves into the challenges and opportunities that the use of AI-DSS presents in the conduct of hostilities for the fulfilment of the principle of humanity in compliance with IHL. The article concludes that it is necessary to adopt a normative framework for the responsible use of AI under IHL and proposes a set of guiding principles and standards grounded in the principle of humanity to ensure that AI is developed and deployed in a more ethical and responsible manner during warfare.

Contemporary armed conflicts have increasingly been accompanied by belligerents’ calls for civilians to support their military efforts. This article investigates the legal consequences of civilians taking up arms provided by or with the tacit support of the State. It first looks at the implications of civilian involvement from the perspective of a State's international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law obligations, focusing on removing civilians from the vicinity of hostilities, informing and training civilians on the implications of directly participating in hostilities, and respecting and ensuring respect for the law. It then demonstrates that the broader fabric of public international law is tested when civilians are encouraged to engage in hostilities, through a close analysis of the challenge of attributing civilian acts to the State. The article closes with practical recommendations for States to ensure that they uphold their humanitarian and human rights obligations, and to render the law of international responsibility effective when civilians commit systemic violations of IHL.

Conflict-related environmental damage remains a huge challenge. This article provides a brief overview of international humanitarian law (IHL) rules that protect the natural environment in armed conflict and notes some convergences with the rules developed by classical Islamic jurists (those who lived from the seventh century up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century) affording protection to the natural environment. Today, a significant number of International Committee of the Red Cross operations take place in Muslim-majority countries, and some Muslim interlocutors, in particular Islamic non-State armed groups, use Islamic law as their normative framework. For better respect for IHL in relevant Muslim-majority States or territories, considering an Islamic legal approach to the protection of the natural environment alongside IHL would allow the parties to conflicts in such countries to better understand their obligations and should enhance the protection of the natural environment in armed conflict.

While persons with disabilities are protected under existing international humanitarian law (IHL), the specific risks and barriers to which these persons are exposed during armed conflict must be better factored into the interpretation and implementation of these rules. The complementarity between IHL and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) may make an important contribution towards a more disability-inclusive implementation of IHL. This article focuses on two major areas addressed by IHL – namely, the conduct of hostilities and detention – against the backdrop of the concept of and agency associated with disability enshrined in the CRPD. This analysis is based on the lived experiences shared by persons with disabilities in consultations co-organized in 2022 by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Disability Forum, the European Disability Forum and the Diakonia IHL Centre.

Despite progress in recent years, including UN Security Council Resolution 2475 of 2019, there remains a significant gap in our awareness of the disability dynamics of armed conflict and the barriers that persons with disabilities experience in accessing the protections of international humanitarian law (IHL). This brief article will consider the protective purpose of IHL and the diversity of civilian populations, and, focussing on the principle of proportionality as an example, demonstrate how IHL must be interpreted, implemented and monitored in a manner that is inclusive and reflects the reality that civilian populations are diverse.

This article discusses the findings of the European Court of Human Rights in the 2021 case of Georgia v Russia (II) in relation to the applicability of the European Convention on Human Rights to the conduct of hostilities. The article describes the arguments advanced by the Court to support the idea that the Convention does not apply to extraterritorial hostilities in an international armed conflict. In the light of past decisions, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and the law of the treaties, it is argued that the Court's conclusion is unconvincing and the arguments seem to be based on extralegal considerations, rather than on a sound interpretation of the notion of state jurisdiction under the Convention.

Siege warfare and its devastating humanitarian consequences have been one of the defining features of contemporary armed conflicts. While the most apparent restriction of siege warfare appears to be provided by the prohibition against starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare, the prevailing restrictive interpretation of this prohibition has left civilians remaining in a besieged area unprotected from the hardships they endure. This article demonstrates that shifting the focus from the prohibition against starvation to the rules regulating humanitarian relief operations does not seem helpful due to the ambiguities regarding the requirement of consent and the right of control of the besieging party. In remedying this protection gap, this article examines whether and how the principle of proportionality applies in the context of a siege. After analyzing whether the encirclement and isolation aspect of a siege can be considered an attack in the sense of Article 49(1) of Additional Protocol I (AP I), to which the proportionality principle applies, the article investigates how this principle operates in the context of a siege. It will be demonstrated that Article 57(2)(b) of AP I requires that the proportionality of a siege must be continuously monitored.

The displacement of civilians during a protracted war is a difficult issue that deserves our attention, and Iraq is unfortunately an emblematic example of this phenomenon. Based on the literature produced by humanitarian organizations and academia, this article aims at analyzing what triggers displacement in protracted conflict, highlighting the role of international humanitarian law (IHL) violations. It discusses how Iraq has been struggling with acts of violence, hostilities and IHL violations that have generated displacement and human suffering.

On 8 June 1977, the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts adopted two Protocols Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. This was the result of nearly ten years of intensive and delicate negotiations. Additional Protocol I protects the victims of international armed conflicts, while Additional Protocol II protects the victims of non-international armed conflicts. These Protocols, which do not replace but supplement the 1949 Geneva Conventions, updated both the law protecting war victims and the law on the conduct of hostilities. This article commemorates the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the 1977 Additional Protocols.

Riot control agents and expanding bullets are the only two kinds of weapon and ammunition that are used for law enforcement purposes but are explicitly prohibited in the conduct of hostilities. This article justifies this difference in treatment with two arguments. First, riot control agents and expanding bullets have different effects on the human body depending on their specific types and the circumstances in which they are deployed. Second, the issues raised by their use differ according to whether they are employed for law enforcement purposes or in the conduct of hostilities.

During an armed conflict, the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in populated areas has a devastating impact on civilians. Less visible than the direct effects of explosive weapons, but equally devastating, are the reverberating effects of the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. While there is growing consensus that parties to an armed conflict are legally obliged to take into account the reasonably foreseeable reverberating effects of an attack, particularly for the purposes of the rules on proportionality and precautions in attack, the precise scope of this obligation remains unclear. After setting out the legal arguments in support of the position that reasonably foreseeable reverberating effects must be taken into account, this article goes on to examine how such effects should be evaluated and how they must be avoided or minimized.

In war, individuals are vulnerable not only physically but also in terms of their cultural identity, and the obliteration of cultural heritage often becomes a central issue. This is particularly the case in armed conflicts with an ethnic, cultural or religious character. In some regions, cultural heritage consists more of monuments and objects; it is a “tangible” heritage, mostly protected by the law of armed conflict. Elsewhere, where structures are impermanent, cultural heritage is mainly expressed through orality, gestures, rituals, music and other forms of expression that individuals create using various media and instruments. Such heritage is mainly “intangible”. This essay aims to show that cultural heritage is both tangible and intangible, and that the law which protects such heritage is not limited to the law of armed conflict. Cultural heritage also benefits from the protection of other applicable instruments, such as human rights treaties and the UNESCO cultural heritage conventions.

Despite widespread State acceptance of the international law governing military use of force across the spectrum of operations, the humanitarian reality in today's armed conflicts and other situations of violence worldwide is troubling. The structure and incentives of armed forces dictate the need to more systematically integrate that law into operational practice. However, treaty and customary international law is not easily translated into coherent operational guidance and rules of engagement (RoE), a problem that is exacerbated by differences of language and perspective between the armed forces and neutral humanitarian actors with a stake in the law's implementation. The author examines the operative language of RoE with a view to facilitating the work of accurately integrating relevant law of armed conflict and human rights law norms. The analysis highlights three crucial debates surrounding the use of military force and their practical consequences for operations: the dividing line between the conduct of hostilities and law enforcement frameworks, the definition of membership in an organized armed group for the purpose of lethal targeting, and the debate surrounding civilian direct participation in hostilities and the consequent loss of protection against direct attack.

The assumption of this article is that when a state is involved in an international armed conflict it may employ lethal force against combatants of the enemy unless they are hors de combat. Hence, even when it would be feasible to do so, it has no duty to apprehend enemy combatants rather than use force against them. Does this same norm apply in non-international armed conflicts occurring in the territory of a single state (internal conflicts)? The writers argue that the answer is in the negative. Despite the attempt in recent years to narrow the differences between the norms that apply in non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) and international armed conflicts (IACs), there are still significant differences between the two types of armed conflict, which justify the application of different norms in this context. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions refers only to humanitarian norms and does not imply that the norms relating to the conduct of hostilities in IACs apply also in NIACs. While customary international law may allow states to use lethal force in a NIAC in the actual conduct of hostilities, there is no basis for assuming that the norm that ostensibly applies in IACs relating to use of such force outside the context of hostilities applies in NIACs too. The jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which is the main source for the arguments on closing the gap between IACs and NIACs, relates only to humanitarian norms and has never addressed extending the permissive IAC norms of the law of armed conflict (LOAC) to NIACs. Finally, in an internal armed conflict the state has a dual capacity: it must respect and ensure the human rights of all persons subject to its jurisdiction, and it is a party in an armed conflict with some of those persons. In such a situation, the only context in which the state may deviate from regular norms of law enforcement is the actual context of hostilities, in which application of such norms is not feasible. In other contexts, its human rights obligations prevail.

The use of “drones” has grown exponentially over the past decade, giving rise to a host of legal and other issues. Internationally, it is the utilization of armed drones by States for the extraterritorial targeting of persons that has generated significant debate. This article attempts to outline some aspects of the relevant legal framework, with a focus on the international law applicable to drone strikes in situations of armed conflict. It briefly addresses the jus ad bellum and then centres on the jus in bello, addressing, in turn, questions related to when there is an armed conflict, what the rules on targeting are, who may be targeted and where persons may be targeted.

This article highlights the challenges to the operation of domestic courts as agents of development of the laws of armed conflict and particularly of the law on the conduct of hostilities. The first part of the article concerns the spillover from various branches of the laws of armed conflict to the law regarding the conduct of hostilities. The second part of the article addresses the structural constraints on domestic courts in deciding issues relating to the laws of armed conflict, focusing on the conflict between their role as guardians of national interests and their judicial commitment to protecting the individual. The cumulative effect of these characteristics of domestic litigation suggests that the laws of armed conflict, and particularly the law on the conduct of hostilities, are not necessarily well served by development through domestic jurisprudence.

Military medical personnel and objects, as well as wounded and sick combatants, are protected against direct attack under the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law. However, some authors argue that they are not covered by the principles of proportionality and precautions. This opinion note explains that military medical objects constitute civilian objects under the rules governing the conduct of hostilities. It also demonstrates that, in view of the object and purpose of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, expected incidental casualties of military medical personnel and wounded and sick combatants must be included among the relevant incidental casualties under the principles of proportionality and precautions. This stems in particular from the interpretation of the obligation ‘to respect and protect’ as the overarching obligation of the special protection afforded to all medical personnel and wounded and sick. Support for this conclusion can be found in a number of military manuals and in the Additional Protocol's preparatory work and Commentaries. This conclusion also reflects customary law.