4 - Human Dignity in International Humanitarian Law

Summary

Chapter Four charts the emergence of human dignity in the context of international humanitarian law, providing the setting for its first constitutive stage. It begins in the second half of the nineteenth century, with human dignity’s symbolic entrance into the fabric of international law with the adoption and entry into force of the Hague Law (Martens Clause, 1899 and 1907 Conventions). The process to impose legal restraints on the conduct of hostilities preceded the Martens Clause and the actual consolidation of this stage was only completed in the aftermath of the Second World War with the watershed represented by the adoption of the Four Geneva Conventions in 1949 and, subsequently, the two Additional Protocols of 1977. Thus, this historical process extends over more than a century, with a range of different legal manifestations which can singled out as the key milestones.