International Humanitarian Law

770 Words4 Pages
This paper aims to assess the conventional narrations of international humanitarian law which is interpreted as the beneficiary of a long continuum of codes of warfare. It establishes that the new idea of an international humanitarian law was codified in the 1970s the Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocols. Still, many of the conditions of the Protocols still continue to be vague and disputed. The essay would place stress on however the evolution of warfare makes it tough for application of the international humanitarian law in specific conflict things like managing prisoners of war conjointly linking it to distinction between international and non-international armed conflict. Introduction International humanitarian law is understood…show more content…
Law organizes the military, defines the battle space, privileges killing the enemy, and offers a common language to debate the legitimacy of waging war – down to the tactics of particular battle. At the same time, law has become a flexible and strategic partner for both the military and for humanitarians seeking to restrain the violence of warfare. Yet, in spite of this international humanitarian law remains controversial topic, as states and legal observers mistrusted the Protocols principles and authority. It was only at the very end of the 20th century that practitioners of international humanitarian law accepted the authority of Additional Protocol I .This shift can be seen in both the newly assured use of the term ‘international humanitarian law’ to describe all of the laws of war and a renovated understanding of the content of this law . This transformation provides an explanation of how one important aspect of the paradigm shift from sovereignty to humanitarianism in international affairs was accomplished. It also points to some degree about the spirit of international humanitarian law itself, by demonstrating international humanitarian law’s curious allocation of authority, its potential for change and its restrictions on…show more content…
Distinctions, between state and non-state actors, between combatants and civilians, between internal wars and international conflicts, and even the distinction between the military and private security military companies. While international law evolves at a slow pace, war is constantly changing and evolving. “The nature of the belligerents, the means and methods of warfare they employ, the goals pursued by the warring parties, and the international context in which they take place are all in a state of flux. The law was developed with particular assumptions about the nature of war and the interests of the parties involved, rules developed in that historic context may lose their relevance as new forms and patterns of warfare emerge”1. ‘New wars’ pose unique challenges for international law as they slowly erode many of these distinctions one of the key distinctions in the law of armed conflict is the one between so-called ‘internal’ wars and international armed conflicts. ‘New wars’ do not easily fit in such neat legal categories, In this way they represent a break from the old patterns of warfare upon which much of the law of armed conflict is
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