INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN

LAW: NEW CHALLENGE AND ISSUES

SUBMITTED BY:
Manpreet Kaur
(18028
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 INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW
IHL is a set of rules that seek to limit the
humanitarian consequences of armed conflicts.
It is sometimes also referred to as the law of
armed conflict or the law of war (jus in bello).
The primary purpose of IHL is to restrict the
means and methods of warfare that parties to a
conflict may employ and to ensure the
protection and humane treatment of persons
who are not, or no longer, taking a direct part in
the hostilities.
In short, IHL comprises those rules of
international law which establish minimum
standards of humanity that must be respected in
any situation of armed conflict.
The core fundamental principles of IHL are:

 The principle of distinction

 The prohibition to attack
those hors de combat
 The prohibition to inflict
unnecessary suffering.
 The principle of necessity.
 The principle of
proportionality

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 NEW WEAPONS TECHNOLOGIES
In many contemporary armed conflicts, military operations and weapon systems
have attained an unprecedented level of complexity, involving the coordination of a
great variety of interdependent human and technological resources in different
locations spread across the globe. In conjunction with the advent of new
technologies, such as remote-controlled weapons, means of cyber-warfare,
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nanotechnology and increasingly autonomous weapons, this development poses a
significant challenge to the interpretation and application of IHL.
REMOTE-CONTROLLED DRONES
CYBER WARFARE
NANOTECHNOLOGY AND AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS

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 THE USE OF EXPLOSIVE WEAPONS IN
POPULATED AREAS
One of the defining features of urban warfare is the use of explosive weapons with
a wide impact area (also referred to as “heavy” explosive weapons), i.e. of weapons
that typically deliver significant explosive force from afar and over a wide area.
While generally not a cause for concern when used in open battlefields. Their
footprints are all over recent and ongoing armed conflicts such as those in
Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen: death, severe
injuries (often leading to lifelong disabilities), mental and psychological trauma, and
large-scale destruction of houses, hospitals, schools, and infrastructure
indispensable for the functioning of essential services – everything that makes a
city work, and on which its inhabitants depend for their survival

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 RESPECT FOR IHL

The legal and practical difficulties arising as a result of changes in the contemporary
security environment have caused confusion and uncertainty not only about the
distinction between armed conflict and law enforcement, but also about the
traditional categorization of persons as civilians and combatants and the temporal
and geographic delimitation of the “battlefield.” As most poignantly evidenced by
the controversies surrounding the legal framework governing the various aspects of
the United States' “war on terror,” that confusion and uncertainty have also
provoked doubt about the adequacy of existing IHL to cope with the emerging
security challenges of the twenty-first century. The most urgent humanitarian need,
however, is not to adopt new rules but rather to ensure actual compliance with the
existing legal framework.
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 CIVILIANIZATION OF MILITARY ACTIVITIES

The armed forces have always been supported by civilians, including contractors
and employees of civilian government services. Indeed, except in a few very
specific cases, IHL does not prohibit the outsourcing of military and security
functions but even stipulates that civilians formally authorized to accompany the
armed forces in an international armed conflict be entitled to prisonerof-war status
upon capture. The past decade, however, has seen an unprecedented trend
towards the outsourcing of functions traditionally assumed by State armed forces
to private military and security companies. In the recent wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, for example, tens of thousands of private contractors were deployed,
and there were even periods when they clearly outnumbered the multinational
forces on the ground.
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 CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
In recent years extraterritorial military operations have given rise to new forms of
military presence in the territory of a State and refocused attention on the rights and
duties of an occupying power, the regulation of the use of force in occupied territory
and the applicability of the law of occupation to UN forces. The responsibilities and
tasks assigned to multinational forces have also evolved to encompass a spectrum of
operations including conflict prevention, peace-keeping, peace-making, peace-
enforcement and peace-building.
The multifaceted nature of
these operations means
multinational forces are
more likely to use force and
raises the question of when
and how IHL will apply to
their actions.”
THANK YOU