WOLKITE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF LAW

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

TITLE: SUMMARY ON HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND

PHYLOSOPHY OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

COURSE: INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

SUBMITTED TO: MS. RABEL D. (LL. B, LL. M)

SUBMISSION DATE: 25/4/2014 EC

NAME: MISGANA MULATU

ID NO: SLR/048/11
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND PHILOSOPHY OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

Summary

In this chapter we have seen that international humanitarian law principally concerned with limiting the
effects of armed conflict. From a historical and philosophical perspective also, there are many scholars
who have dedicated their time and efforts to trace the very incident that gave rise to the idea of controlling
war. The idea of controlling of war is said to be as old as war itself. also, it has survived and is alive and
well in the world today.

There are different stages of historical development of international humanitarian law that narrated by
scholars. The first stage is given a name 'early plan for peaceful order' Abhorrence of war and with it
the making of plans for its abolition, prevention, or limitation is said to be an old-age aspect of man’s
confused and ambivalent thinking about war. From all those earlier centuries of thought and planning
about the control of war, there is an important and unbroken stream whose relevance to practicability was
never doubted and whose particular and unique idea was rooted in circumstances where it directly made
sense: the idea of restraint and self-respect in the conduct of war. These ideas have turned up in most
civilizations

The second period covers the years from the second half of the 19th and early 20th century. In this period,
and societies gradually. This optimistic reading of war achieved very wide acceptance. At the same time,
the development of international organization and of public international law were being read as elements
of that overall progress in condition of mankind which the majority of inhabitants of the imperial powers
took for granted. So much of a war-controlling kind was proposed to be done in this historical period, and
enough actually was said to have been done, for the record of those years to serve as a kind of
compendium of ideas and illustrations covering all branches of our subject matter.

The next important event in the history of international humanitarian law is disarmament or as defined
by the scholars ‘arms control’ movement. This was one of the principal war controlling endeavors of the
19th century. Among the most significant ones, disarmament proposals of one sort or another were put
forward by Russia in 1816, 1859; and 1899; by France in 1863 and 1877; Britain in 1866, 1870, and
1890; Denmark in 1893. Disarmament had other attractions of a more prudential and self-serving nature
too. Armaments and armed forces cost money. the costs of military preparedness were becoming
fearsome, and part of the public mind was interested in reducing them. Alexander, who was mindful of
all the problems of the time relating to disarmament, in 1816 proposed a great idea of ‘a simultaneous
reduction in the armed forces of all kinds, which the powers have brought into being to preserve the
safety and independence of their peoples’.

Another principal war-controlling endeavor of the nineteenth century other than disarmament, was
arbitration. disarmament and arbitration go, hand in hand in that the former strives to reduce the ability
to fight wars and to remove the pressures and inducements thereto; and the latter, to resolve international
Disarmament and arbitration were both major preoccupations of The Hague Conferences of 1899 and
1907. It is also equally important and necessary to wheel back fifty years and say few words on the other
half of the war-controlling story which also proved to be big at The Hague the laws and customs of war.

The other very important events in the history of international humanitarian law are the two Conferences
held at The Hague in 1899 and 1907. Both Conferences were known as pace Conferences. The
conference ended with no more than this uncontroversial declaration that ‘the limitation of military
expenses, which presently weigh heavy on the world, is much to be desired for the sake of both material
and moral development of humankind’. But the Conferences’ failure was almost complete in respect of
their announced purposes of disarmament and arms control.

The next important event that comes into picture in the history of international humanitarian law is the
post-world war II circumstance. The UN is a post-1945 circumstance which makes a big mark. Its
predecessor, the League of Nations, also made a mark for a few years but it did not last.

Henry Dunant and Francis Lieber, have made essential contributions to the concept and contents of
contemporary international humanitarian law. The important contribution of these two figures is not of
course inventing protection for the victims of war, rather they are known for expressing an old idea in the
form adapted to the contemporary world. they built on an idea which is a pillar to the basic rules of
humanitarian law based on what is put forward by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract, which
appeared in 1762. The idea used as a basis for the rules on humanitarian law is that “War is in no way a
relationship of man with man but a relationship between States, in which individuals are only enemies by
accident, not as men, but as soldiers.” i.e. that the purpose of a bellicose attack may never be to destroy
the enemy physically. doing he lays the foundations for the distinction to be made between combatant and
civilians. The use of force is permitted only against the combatants, since the purpose of war is to
overcome enemy armed forces, not to destroy an enemy nation. Henry Dunant, has also made a notable
contribution through his book ‘A Memory of Solferino’. In this writing, He was deeply shocked by the
absence of any form of help for the wounded and dying. He, therefore, proposed two practical measures
calling for direct action: an international agreement on the neutralization of medical personnel in the field,
and the creation of a permanent organization for practical assistance to the war wounded. The first led to
the adoption in 1864 of the initial Geneva Convention whereas the second saw the founding of the Red
Cross. This material was revised in 1906 on the recommendation of the ICRC and on the basis of the
experience of several wars.