The principle of humane treatment in IHL requires that those who fall into the hands of the enemy be treated with respect for their dignity as human beings. British Red Cross.Treaties, States Parties, and Commentaries: Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field. clearly illegal under the LOAC to an ordinary person with ordinary common sense).[14]. The Court rejected this argument andheld that consent exised since September 11, 2001, through an Authorization for Use of Military Forces (AUMF), a Congressional resolution which empowered the President to use all necessary and appropriate forces against any nations, organizations, or personsthat he determinedto have planned, authorized,committed, or aided in the September 11, 2001attacks. At the time, some were concerned we werent pushing hard enough. LOAC continues to evolve as mankind struggles to advance the principles of humanity in warfare whilst maintaining the needs of international and national security.[25]. In addition to nationally ratified laws of war (e.g. General (GEN) Tommy Franks, the U.S. Army former Commander of CENTCOM, has also defended Americas decision to go to war against the Saddam dictatorship in Iraq, stating that: The intelligence, while not precise, was overwhelming. [15], CIL refers to practices in warfare that are so consistently upheld and adhered to by a majority of States on the world stage that they have become generally regarded as law. The rules help draw a lineas much as is possible within the context of wars and armed conflictsbetween the humane treatment of armed forces, medical staff and civilians and unrestrained brutality against them. Nobelprize.org.History of the Geneva Conventions. Of immediate relevance for the operation of military medical services, the ICRC's 2016 Commentary observes that the Article 12(4) obligation requires planning and analysis of the military healthcare system, andcruciallyrequires parties to 'consider how the roles and patterns formed by the social, economic, cultural or political . [29] J. Pejic, Unlawful/Enemy Combatants: Interpretations and consequences, forthcoming in M. Schmitt & J. Pejic (eds) International Law and Armed Conflict: Exploring the Faultlines Essays in honour of Yoram Dinstein, Brill Academic Publishers & Boston Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden, 2007, p. 7,in Derbyshire, Section Four: When and to Whom Does LOAC Apply?, 149.335 Law of Armed Conflict, op. The complexity of modern conflict today however with wars increasingly involving features of, In a clinical sense, any armed conflict that does not conform to the IAC definition provided in Common Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions or Article 1 of Additional Protocol I must. [36] Pejic, Unlawful/Enemy Combatants: Interpretations and consequences, op. The Code of Conduct, issued on executive order by President Eisenhower in 1955, requires the military prisoner to . The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols is a body of Public International Law, also known as the Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflicts, whose purpose is to provide minimum protections, standards of humane treatment, and fundamental guarantees of respect to individuals who become victims of armed conflicts. The extreme, Islamo-fascist terrorists and insurgents of today do indeed present a new and different brand of non-State and unlawful Enemy combatant in armed conflict in modern times, that was certainly not envisaged in the drafting of the Geneva Conventions in 1949 or the IAC and NIAC Additional Protocols in 1977. The controversy especially concerned Americas use of CIA/Department of Justice government-approved enhanced interrogation techniques to extract information from approximately 33 uncooperative detainees on plans for future terrorist attacks and the members and organisational structure of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window). [4], (1) To ensure minimum protections are given to the victims of war during armed conflict; and. Had we captured more al Qaeda operatives with significant intelligence value, I would have used the program for them as well (Bush, Decision Points, ibid., pp. Humane Treatment (GPW, Art. Under this Convention, civilians are afforded the same protections from inhumane treatment and attack affordedto sick and wounded soldiers in the first Convention. In order to be a Non-International armed conflict, either: (1) a minimum level of intensity in the hostilities must be reached, e.g. Common Article 3 the article common to all four of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 which alone treats Non-International armed conflict requires that, in addition to humane treatment for all military personnel hors de combat or taken Prisoner of War in International armed conflicts, all persons not taking an active part in hostilities within a Non-International armed conflict be likewise treated humanely in all circumstances, regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, birth, wealth or any other similar criteria. The U.N. calls for the humane treatment of prisoners of war, citing talk of summary executions. Perhaps the most important and pressing evolution of CIL in recent decades concerns the treatment of captured Al Qaeda/Islamist terrorists, and terror-using insurgents (e.g. 61-62 in Geneva Convention II, pp. Within this resiliently-enduring Westphalian system, State and Non-State actors continue to form the basic building blocks of the international system today, and the fundamental parties and actions within a conflict can be identified even within very complex conflicts, meaning that categorisation of wars into International and Non-International armed conflict can still take place. (2) Wounded, sick and shipwrecked military personnel at sea (Geneva Convention II), (3) Military personnel who have become Prisoners of War (Geneva Convention III), and, (4) Civilian persons in time of war (Geneva Convention IV).[18]. Serious consequences were threatened for noncompliance. The doctrine of universal jurisdiction is based on the notion that some crimes, such as genocide, crimes against humanity,torture, and war crimes, areso exceptionally gravethat they affect the fundamental interests of the international community as a whole. 81-82 in Geneva Convention III, and pp. *For an excellent documentary discussing the CIAs use of enhanced interrogation techniques on captured terrorists detained at Guantanamo prison, and presenting both sides of the argument from the perspectives of 12 living ex-CIA Directors, see: Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs (Amazon link here: https://www.amazon.com/Spymasters-CIA-Crosshairs-Mandy-Patinkin/dp/B018T4TNHY). To see a table listing the States that have ratified the four 1949 Geneva Conventions and its two 1977 Additional Protocols, click on the following link: Dr Regeena Kingsley PDF List of Ratifying States to Geneva Conventions & Additional Protocols (2019) v3 Compressed. For information on immigration and links to the 1951 Conventionand 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, see the article aboutImmigration. Civilians and detained combatants or fighters are entitled to respect for their physical and mental integrity, their honour, family rights, religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs. [11] The Use of Force in International Law: Types of Armed Conflict, Open University [Great Britain], 2019, https://www.open.edu/openlearn/society-politics-law/the-use-force-international-law/content-section-2.1.3, (accessed 23 April 2019). American Red Cross.The Battle of Solferino. when the government is obliged to use military armed forces against dissident insurgents, instead of simply the police force; or (2) non-government dissident groups must possess organized armed forces sufficient to render them parties to the conflict, meaning that they are operating under some kind of command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations within the State. [25] Derbyshire, History of LOAC, in Section One: Introduction to LOAC and Historical Development, 149.335 Law of Armed Conflict, ibid., p. 35. Gates states the following in his memoir: None of us doubted in the early 1990s that, just as soon as he could, Saddam would resume the programs he had under way before the [Gulf] war to develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Genocide in Rwanda: In April 1994, 2,000 Tutsi civilians seeking refuge at a UN school compound in Kigali, that was guarded by a unit of armed Belgian UNAMIR forces, were ultimately abandoned by these UN protectors and then butchered by hostile and genocidal Hutu militia armed with machetes, who had for days been watching and waiting outside the school gates.[2]. [15] Derbyshire, Section Four: When and to Whom Does LOAC Apply, p. 2, Section One: Introduction to LOAC and Historical Development, p. 3, and 149.335 Introduction to LOAC in Section One: Introduction to LOAC and Historical Development, p. 7, 149.335 Law of Armed Conflict, ibid. terrorist attacks, do. LOAC continues to evolve as mankind struggles to advance the principles of humanity in warfare whilst maintaining the needs of international and national security.. [10], Non-International armed conflicts typically involve civil wars in which: (a) the government of a State is using its regular armed forces to fight against one or more identifiable, dissident armed groups operating within the territory of the State; or (b) armed and hostile fighting is taking place between dissident, rival armed groups within a State, that does not involve the government, but nevertheless requires the government to act to restore security and stability to the State.[11]. Torture has been defined in the Rome Statute as: The intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions (Article 7(2)(e) available to view here: https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf). Indeed, from that moment onwards, waterboarding and many other of the more aggressive enhanced interrogation techniques were no longer sanctioned or used by the CIA program on detainees at Guantanamo. The new updates stated all prisoners must be treated with compassion and live in humane conditions. Sweden/Syria, Can Armed Groups Issue Judgments? The LOAC is comprised of international laws such as the Geneva Conventions, which, once ratified by individual Nation States, proscribe powerful and unequivocal obligations and duties on all individual members of the Nation States armed forces during any and every military conflict. By 2003, most governments and intelligence services had concluded that Saddam had been successful in resuming his weapons programs. futhermore, the animosities generated by terrorism make the postwar peace more difficult to preserve. [39] C. Weller, Startling maps show every terrorist attack worldwide over the last 20 years, Business Insider, 1 November 2017, https://www.businessinsider.com/global-terrorist-attacks-past-20-years-in-maps-2017-5?r=US&IR=T, (accessed 1 May 2019). receive humane treatment, to have contact with humanitarian organizations, and . cit., p. 4. Humane treatment includes: (Military Persons Exempt From Attack, pg. Ukraine Diary: Spring flowers bloom in Kyiv's streets, a sign of life returning to the city. The principle seeks to ensure that the physical integrity of captured/detained persons is not violated, that they are not subjected to any form of torture or ill treatment. The amendments extended protections for those wounded or captured in battle as well as volunteer agencies and medical personnel tasked with treating, transporting and removing the wounded and killed. Al Qaeda terrorists attack the United States of America: On 11 September 2001 four passenger commercial aircraft were hijacked by Al Qaeda terrorists, in a plot designed and enacted by the central Al Qaeda cell led by Osama bin Laden in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. [33] Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions it is prohibited to torture non-combatant civilians,hors de combatwounded, sick or PW military personnel,or other lawful combatants during an armed conflict. In response, two Protocols Additional to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions were adopted in 1977. It also identified new protections and rights of civilian populations. [27] M. De Long (Lt. Gen.) & N. Lukeman, A General Speaks Out [originally published as Inside CentCom: the unvarnished truth about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq], Zenith Press, St. Paul (MN), 2007, p. 68. The original Geneva Convention was adopted in 1864 to establish the red cross emblem signifying neutral status and protection of medical services and volunteers. At present, 168 States are party to Additional Protocol I and 164 States to Additional Protocol II,this still places the 1977 Additional Protocols among the most widely accepted legal instruments in the world. cit., p. 4-5). The fact also remains that terrorists operating within conflict zones are, by intent and design, mass-murdering criminals, who conduct illegal activities using prohibited means and methods, and who, by their very nature and purpose, do not themselves respect or adhere to the rules prescribed in Common Article 3, and give no fundamentally humane treatment to either military or civilian combatants or non-combatants, either in the course of their fighting or upon capture when held in their power. [34] Modified image taken from M. Petrou, The decline of al-Qaeda, Macleans, 9 September 2011, https://www.macleans.ca/news/world/the-decline-of-al-qaeda/, (accessed 1 May 2019). All of the passengers of the four civilian flights were killed, in addition to thousands of civilians of 115 different nationalities who were working in the buildings. In 1949, after World War II, two new Conventions were added, and the Geneva Conventions entered into force on 21 October 1950. No one size fits all legal approach to terrorism, particularly as to the judicial nature of the situation and the classification of suspected terrorists, is, or has proved to be, feasible in practice.[38], Two slides taken from the Google TimeLapse terrorism project, which has tracked and displayed terrorist attacks that occur worldwide each year over a twenty-year period from 1997-2017.[39]. International armed conflicts are governed by all four Geneva Conventions in addition to Additional Protocol I, while Non-International conflict is governed by Common Article 3 in the four Geneva conventions in addition to Additional Protocol II, but also leans heavily on internationally-accepted customs or norms with regard to basic human conduct, protections and rights in warfare known as Customary International Law. Once armed conflict breaks out, the exact laws of war and regulations that govern the hostility depends largely on its classification as either an International or Non-International armed conflict. Indeed, some KFOR military contingents failed to take any action whatsoever during the security emergency among them two NATO Lead Nations, France and Italy, with significantly large KFOR national contingents in addition to lead command responsibilities over their respective KFOR sectors. Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute.Henry Dunant Biographical. In 1929, updates were made to further the civilized treatment of prisoners of war. Intelligence information is much more often imprecise than it is precise[Included in our intelligence analysis was] WMD from the last Gulf War, the [testimony of Saddams defecting] son-in-law who gave information, [and the] monumental reams of intercepted information (cited in DeLong, ibid., p. 69). Common Article 3 requires the humane treatment of all persons taking no active part in the hostilities - this includes persons who have laid down their arms, or are hors de combat (i.e. It is binding on you as a member of thearmed forces of your State. But as the years went by, Saddam became much more aggressive in limiting the reach of the inspectors, and the inspections for all practical purposes ended in 1998. 3 of 8) All of the above But he didnt just write about what hed observed, he also proposed a solution: All nations come together to create trained, volunteer relief groups to treat battlefield wounded and offer humanitarian assistance to those affected by war. The Conventions apply to all cases of armed conflict between two or more signatory nations, even in the absence of a declaration of war. In NIACs, the requirement of humane treatment for civilians and persons hors de combat is set out in common Article 3, which prohibits violence to life and person (including cruel treatment and torture), the taking of hostages, humiliating and degrading treatment, and execution without regular trial. The horrific suffering Dunant saw impacted him so greatly he wrote a first-hand account in 1862 called A Memory of Solferino. The Law of War requires humane treatment for military personnel who are out of combat (hors de combat) due to capture by enemy forces. The sanctions were not working, the inspections were unsatisfactory, and we could not get Saddam to leave by other meansBased on what I read and my knowledge of Saddams behavior in the 1980s and early 1990s it seemed highly likely to me that he had resumed working on weapons of mass destruction, that the sanctions were largely ineffective, and that the man was a very dangerous megalomaniac. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. (The Principles of the Law of War, pg. They charged that Americans had committed unlawful torture. In Rwanda in 1994 and Bosnia in 1995, UNAMIR and UNPROFOR national contingent forces failed in their preeminent mandated duty to act in a robust military fashion to protect the lives of thousands of non-combatant civilians, sheltering in UN safe areas under their command, from the hostile intent and hostile lethal force actions of Enemy forces towards the local civilian population. cit., p. 13. Trailer #12: SEAL Team Low-Impact (High-Risk) (2022, Series 6, Episode 1) [American SOF Forces, Burkina Faso/Mali]. [35] Modified images taken from the International Herald Tribune, www.iht.com, and ABC News, www.abc.news,(accessed 14 January 2011). My most solemn responsibility as president was to protect the country. In particular, heated controversy surrounds knowledgeable terrorists or terror-using insurgents captured operating in warzones, who are by definition not only unlawful combatants under the laws of war but also war criminals guilty of committing indiscriminate acts of terror and mass-murder, and who possess extensive knowledge of terrorist members, organisation, and plots for future attacks that if obtained might save the lives of countless other human beings, including many innocent civilians. b. Krivdo, CJSOTF-A Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan A Short History 2002-2014, Office of the Command Historian, 2016, https://www.soc.mil/ARSOF_History/articles/v12n2_cjsotf_page_1.html, (accessed 1 May 2019) and J. Satya, The Clearest 9/11 World Trade Center Footage on the Internet, DigitalAmple.com, 5 August 2018, https://digitalample.com/the-clearest-9-11-world-trade-center-footage-on-the-internet/, (accessed 1 May 2019). This language was added in 1949 to accommodate situations that have all the characteristics of war without the existence of a formal declaration of war, such as a. It requires humane treatment for all persons in enemy hands, without discrimination. In the following blog, , Within the vast body of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) that exists today, LOAC is the field of law that governs all international relations concerned with armed conflict, and is comprised of. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Required fields are marked *, You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

. In addition to nationally ratified laws of war (e.g. c. In accordance with DoDD 2311.01, all persons subject to this issuance will report All service men and women on military operations worldwide have a personal duty and obligation to act lawfully by obeying the LOAC during their service in the military, no-matter the military situation in peace or in war, and no-matter the location of deployment at home or abroad. For much of mankinds history, the ground rules of warfare were hit or miss, if they existed at all. a. [30], In a landmark case Hamdi v Rumsfeld, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the U.S. governments inter-State International LOAC categorisation of the conflicts and ruled instead (with two dissenting judges) that these captured terrorists and insurgents were in fact non-State and unlawful Enemy combatants of intra-State, Non-International armed conflicts, since armed conflict was taking place against a non-State actor, the terrorist network Al Qaeda, in the territory of countries that were party to the Geneva Conventions (e.g. None of us doubted in the early 1990s that, just as soon as he could, Saddam would resume the programs he had under way before the [Gulf] war to develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. In previous blogs I have presented case-studies of Multinational Operations (MNOs) in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo, in which participating national forces bound by government-imposed national caveat constraints failed to use lethal force at the critical and necessary moments in order to fully uphold or pursue the primary security objectives of their security mission mandates. It specifically prohibits murder, mutilation. But. Where domestic law does not allow for the exercise of universal jurisdiction, a Statemust introduce the necessary domestic legislative provisions before it can do so, and must actually exercise the jurisdiction, unless it hands the suspect over to another country or international tribunal. The intensive inspections program instituted after the [Gulf] war uncovered evidence that the Iraqis had, in fact, been considerably further along in developing nuclear weapons than U.S. intelligence had estimated before the warAs long as the inspections effort continued and the sanctions were strictly enforced, his opportunities to resume the programs for weapons of mass destruction would be very limited. The circumstances of each will determine whether it legally and factually meets the qualifying conditions as an armed conflict (international or non-international). The Law of War requires humane treatment for military personnel who are out of combat (hors de combat) due to capture by enemy forces. Finally, it discusses how occupiers are to treat an occupied populace. [16] Derbyshire, 149.335 Introduction to LOAC, in Section One: Introduction to LOAC and Historical Development, 149.335 Law of Armed Conflict, ibid., p. 13. In Hamdi,a U.S. citizen wasaccused of being a member of the Taliban forceson U.S. soil as an "enemy combatant," and was detained by unilateral Executive decision;The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the validity of his detention. This question remains an extremely serious and crucial conundrum in the modern era of warfare and terrorism today. He got much more than he bargained for, however, when he found himself a witness to the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino, a gory battle in the Second War of Italian Independence. The Swiss Government agreed to hold the Conventions in Geneva, and a few years later, a similar agreement to protect shipwrecked soldiers was produced. But the choice between security and values was real. In the wake of 9/11, that was a risk I was unwilling to take. Counter to expectation, it has in fact been Non-International, rather than International, armed conflict that has predominated in theatres of conflict around the world since the end of WWII, and which still continues to represent the majority of armed conflicts today. We strive for accuracy and fairness. The complexity of modern conflict today however with wars increasingly involving features of both International and Non-International conflict at the same time has presented some challenges to this clear-cut LOAC categorisation of war in recent times (e.g.

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