Humanitarian Law

Humanitarian Law

After a series of attacks on military and civilian targets by individuals, a country is envisaging stronger measures to fight terrorism. Evaluate if international humanitarian law can be an appropriate legal framework and answer the following questions:

How does International Humanitarian Law deal with terrorism?

International Humanitarian law an international law body which applies in the event that the armed hostility rises and enters into the realm of armed conflict, either non-international or international. The four Geneva Conventions of the year 1949 are the best known international humanitarian law treaties along with their two supplementary protocols of the year 1977. However there is a wide variety of other international humanitarian law treaties which are targeted at the reduction of human suffering in war times. International humanitarian law, which is also at times known as the law of war or the law of armed conflict doesn't impart a description for terrorism however excludes majority of the activities perpetrated in the armed conflict which would generally be taken as terrorist activities in the event that they were perpetrated during a time of peace. International humanitarian law particularly excludes the abandons the terrorist activities. According to the fourth Geneva Convention, the joint penalties and similarly, every act of terrorism or intimidation is prohibited (Arnold & Quénivet, 2008).

At the same time, according to the supplementary protocol II, the terrorist activities against individuals or no more participating in violence is prohibited. The principal objective is to highlight that neither people nor the populace of civilians shall be subjected to joint penalties that amongst other things perceptibly bring on a situation of terror. These stipulations are a major part of the international humanitarian laws administering the hostile and violent conducts, that is, the way military operations are conducted. The international humanitarian law prohibits those violent and hostile activities in duration of the armed conflict which don't impart a specific military benefit. Something to take into account is that even a legal attack on the military targets may cause swelling of fear amongst the civilians. Nevertheless, the stipulations of the international humanitarian law proscribe attacks which are particularly targeted towards terrorizing the civilians, for instance, sniping of civilians or campaigns of shelling in urban regions.

When does terrorism amount to an armed conflict?

International humanitarian law is applicable only in the event of armed conflict. A major element of the concept of armed conflict is the subsistence of parties having that conflict. In an international armed conflict, the parties are two or more than two states, while parties in a non-international armed conflict may either just be armed groups, or states together with armed groups, for instance the rebel forces. A party in an armed conflict, in both the cases, has a military-like arrangement having a command structure and a particular level of organization, and thus, the capability of respecting and ensuring the respect for international humanitarian law. The regulations of the international humanitarian law are equally applicable to an armed conflict. This application is irrespective of whether the concerned ...