What is international humanitarian law or law of armed conflict ?

International humanitarian law, also known as the law of armed conflict or use in bello or simply
IHL is a specialized field of public international law which primarily regulates the conduct of
parties engaged in an armed conflict. IHL seeks to limit the consequences of armed conflict and
aims to protect individuals, whether they're civilian or military and whether wounded or active. To
mitigate(soften in force) the effects of war, belligerent states(hostile and aggressive
states)and other armed groups engaged in the conflict are obliged to conduct hostilities within
certain legal boundaries. IHL ultimately seeks to strike a balance between two main underlying
principles, the principle of humanity and the principle of military necessity. The principle of
military necessity permits the use of force that is necessary to achieve the aim of a conflict, but
with limits to the expenditure of life and resources. The principle of humanity forbids the
infliction(act of causing something unpleasant (suffering, etc) of suffering, injury or destruction
which would be unnecessary to win the war. These two principles shape the entire body of law
and are inherent in most of the more detailed rules stemming from the Geneva Conventions or
the Hague regulations. On the basis of the fundamental idea that military necessity needs to be
balanced with humanitarian considerations, a few operational principles follow that must be
applied by armed groups on the battlefield. These principles include those of distinction,
proportionality, precautions and the prohibition of unnecessary suffering. We will have a
thorough look at the meaning of these principles at a later stage in this MOOC(a course of study
made available over the Internet without charge to a very large number of people).

Coming back to the first question: What areas does IHL cover? Generally speaking, IHL
covers two areas or branches known as Hague law and Geneva law. Hague law restricts the
means and methods of warfare. According to these rules, there are certain limitations upon the
weapons that can be used in armed conflict, and hostilities can only be conducted in limited
ways. This area is also referred to as the law governing the conduct of hostilities. Geneva law
protects persons in armed conflict, such as military personnel and civilians who are not or who
are no longer directly participating in hostilities. This branch of IHL dictates that fighters who
have laid down their arms, medical personnel, detainees, civilians and women and children
should always be treated humanely and stipulates(specify) certain standards on how to treat
them. We also refer to this area as the law governing protected persons. These two branches of
IHL draw their names from the cities where the respective treaties were initially codified, the
Hague and Geneva. Hague law refers to the Hague Convention of 1899 and 1907 and the laws
on the protection of certain individuals were laid down in the four 1949 Geneva Conventions. A
substantial part of IHL has been codified in the revised 1949 Geneva Conventions. Because
nearly every state in the world has signed and ratified these conventions, they have become
one of the most widely accepted international treaty bodies in the world. Both the Hague
regulations and the Geneva Conventions have been developed and supplemented by the
Additional Protocols of 1977, relating to the protection of victims of armed conflicts. The
protocols aimed to combine these two branches of IHL, and as a consequence, the distinction
between Hague law and Geneva law has since become less relevant. In addition to these key
sources of IHL, there are other agreements which explicitly prohibit the use of certain weapons
and military tactics(science of employing forces in combat), such as the 1980 Convention on
Certain Conventional Weapons and its five protocols. Many provisions of IHL are now accepted
as customary law which means that they bind all states, regardless of whether these states
have rectified their respective treaties. Let us now have a brief look at the history of IHL. War is
as old as society itself and even in ancient civilizations and religions, it was governed by a set of
rules, sometimes expressed in codes of honor or local agreements. These ancient regulations
however no longer served their purposes when the industrial revolution led to the rapid rise of
mass armies and powerful weapons. As a result, harsh practices took place on the battlefield.
For instance, in the American Civil War. In response to the large number of casualties, several
humanitarian initiatives were sparked. In Europe the birth of modern IHL was initiated by a
young businessmen from Geneva, Henry Dunant. In 1859, on his journey through Italy, Dunant
witnessed wounded and dying soldiers on the battlefield of Solferino. This experience moved
Dunant to begin a process that resulted in the creation of two key pillars of IHL. First, he initiated
the establishment of an independent relief organization which could take care of the wounded
and sick on the battlefield. The International Committee of the Red Cross, also known as the
ICRC. As a second measure, he motivated the major powers at that time to adopt the original
and first Geneva Convention for the Amelioration(improvement) of the Condition of the
Wounded and Armies in the Field, in 1864. Since then, IHL has developed into one of the most
comprehensive and universally recognized bodies of international law. The final question we
would like to answer in this lecture is: where does IHL stand in the international legal order?
IHL is a specific field within public international law. It is the body of law that regulates the
conduct of parties engaged in an armed conflict. One of its crucial characteristics is that IHL
applies only if an armed conflict exists. IHL however does not regulate whether the use of force
by one state against another is lawful. Whether the resort to force is lawful in the first place is
regulated by a different body of law, the law on the use of force also called the jus ad bellum.
IHL applies to armed conflict, but it is certainly not the only body of law that applies in situations
of war. Human rights law, for instance, applies in peace times but continues to apply in wartime
situations. Human rights law, like IHL, strives(try) to protect the lives, the health and the dignity
of individuals albeit from a different angle. While IHL and human rights law have similarities,
these bodies of law also have important differences in their origins and scope of application. The
final body of law we would like to cover is International Criminal Law. One method to enforce
IHL or in other words prevent and repress violations of IHL is the initiation of criminal
prosecution and sanctions. IHL itself does not regulate in detail how such criminal prosecution
and sanctions should be carried out when the laws of armed conflict are violated. This is the
task of domestic and international criminal law. We will explore the enforcement of IHL or
criminal law at a later stage in this MOOC. In summary, we have seen that IHL is a body of law
that is specifically established to regulate the conduct of parties engaged in an armed conflict.
By setting boundaries to the way that hostilities can be conducted and by providing rules on the
protection of wounded soldiers, detainees and civilians, IHL aims to mitigate or alleviate ( make
less severe) human suffering on the battlefield.