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International humanitarian law after September 11: challenges and the need to respond1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Dieter Fleck
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The need to enforce and further develop international legal protection after 11 September 2001 has been discussed in prominent fora before. A wide range of issues (self-defence, humanitarian law, human rights, national laws and regulations, criminal sanctions) must be considered in this context. Different phases of application of the law (international and non-international armed conflict, peace enforcement, post-conflict peace building, etc.) are affected. Misconceptions have been propagated at the highest government levels and have created new problems rather than solving existing ones.

Among expert observers, such developments may cause feelings of déjà vu. In the years after the adoption of the 1977 Additional Protocols, when one might have expected that all efforts would be taken to accelerate the ratification of these new instruments and ensure respect for their provisions, Protocol I was criticised as being in the service of terror, an allegation that won certain influence although it was promptly and convincingly refuted. Concerns expressed more recently that the application of certain rules of humanitarian law might impede the fight against terrorism may stem from similar ways of thinking. They have made it necessary to explicate in detail that terrorist acts when committed during armed conflict are serious violations of humanitarian law, prohibited without any exception in the Geneva Conventions, their Additional Protocols and other international treaties and customary law, and that only scrupulous respect for international humanitarian law in military campaigns helps to strengthen the determination of all members of the international community to abide by the law in all circumstances.

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Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law , Volume 6 , December 2003 , pp. 41 - 71
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Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Instituut and the Authors 2003

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References

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18. SC Res. 1214, 8 December 1998, preambular para. 3 and operative para. 13.

19. SC Res. 1267, 15 October 1999, preambular para. 5 and operative para. 2.

20. SC Res. 1333, 19 December 2000.

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56. British Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 <http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/20010024.htm>. It remains questionable whether the material conditions for derogation under Art. 15 ECHR and Art. 4 ICCPR are met in this case. See Black-Branch, J., ‘Powers of detention of suspected international terrorists under the United Kingdom Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001: dismantling the cornerstones of a civil society’, 27 European Law Review Human Rights Survey (2002) p. 19Google Scholar; Henning, V.H., ‘Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001: has the United Kingdom made a valid derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights?’, 17 Amer. Univ. ILR (2002) pp. 1263 at 1277 et seq.Google Scholar

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59. This was the request addressed on 11 April 2003 to the European Commission for Democracy Through Law (hereafter, Venice Commission) on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

60. Opinion on the Possible Need for Further Development of the Geneva Conventions, adopted by the Venice Commission at its 57th Plenary Sess. (2003), Opinion No. 245/2003, Council of Europe Doc. CDL-AD (2003) 18, 17 December 2003 <http://www.venice.coe.int/docs/2003/CDL-AD(2003)018-e.pdf>.

61. Art. 2 Convention (II) with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land 1899, in Schindler and Toman, supra n. 26, pp. 55–87.

62. Art. 2 Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land 1907, in ibid., pp. 55–87.

63. Art. 25(2) Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field 1929, in ibid., pp. 409–420; Art. 82(2) Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War 1929, in ibid., pp. 421–444.

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72. See Art. 34 GC IV.

73. See Art. 23(b) of the Hague Regulations.

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82. The International Law Association has established a new Committee on Compensation for Victims of War. Its Mandate is as follows:

‘Innocent civilians are often casualties during armed conflicts, whether or not intentionally targeted. Deprived of effective protection, they are often left without any remedy if they are killed or wounded, or suffer property or other losses. It is time to systematically review the law of war and human rights with a view to focussing on the rights of victims of war to compensation — both to serve the end of justice and to inhibit wanton attack on civilian population by the military, whether or not under superior order. The proposed project would have as its goal the preparation and adoption of a Draft Declaration of International Law Principles on Compensation to Victims of War, as a logical sequel to three ILA declarations already adopted: namely, on Mass Expulsion (Seoul 1986), Compensation to Refugees (Cairo 1992), and Internally Displaced Persons (London 2000). Underlying all these declarations is the principle that compensation must, under international law, be paid to victims of human rights abuses.’

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