International Humanitarian Law: From the Battle of Solferino to the War on Terror
This course is designed to provide a comprehensive treatment of international humanitarian law— otherwise known as the laws of war— from the Battle of Solferino in June 1859 to the Bush Adminstrations current ‘war on terror’. The course shall begin with an investigation into the intellectual foundations of the regulation of warfare— is all truly fair in love and war? how realistic are restraints during hostilities?— and trace the development of regulation towards its contemporary paradigm, that is international humanitarian law for international armed conflicts and for non-international armed conflicts.
With this structure in mind, we shall endeavor to test the appeal and viability of traditional rules for traditional wars— or (as they are now known) international armed conflicts— against the complex and unanticipated realities of the present day. We shall ask, for instance, whether integral categorizations such as ‘prisoners of war’ or ‘civilians’ appropriately reflect or respond to contemporary challenges, at the same time that we shall enquire how and why these rules are meant to work the way they do. To illuminate our discussions, reference shall be made to the conditions for detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at the Abu Ghraib complex in Iraq, and the class shall examine both video and photographic evidences of these conditions.
Emphasis shall not only be given to the participants of warfare— armed forces, guerrillas, rebel movements, spies and mercenaries— but also to the ways in which wars are and have been fought in the period under study. We shall consider issues such as nuclear and chemical weapons, and the means by which wars have been fought: to guide us in our deliberations, we shall use case studies from the Falklands War (1982) for naval warfare and Operation Allied Force over Kosovo (1999) for aerial warfare. The class shall also consider at length the advisory opinion on nuclear weapons delivered by the International Court of Justice in July 1996.
Finally, the course shall consider topics where the law provides specialized regimes such as belligerent occupation (as applied to the territories in the Middle East), cultural protection (the Taliban’s behavior during the Afghan war) and environmental protection (such as Iraq’s destruction of Kuwaiti oil wells in 1991). It will also consider how the rules for non-international armed conflicts have worked since 1949, and whether these are in need of any reform given the experiences of Colombia, Sri Lanka, Rwanda and the Sudan. Throughout, our purpose will be to evaluate the desirability of the rules we have, but also the measures that might be taken— and should be taken— to enhance the overall effectiveness of international humanitarian law. To this end, we shall explore the place of ‘belligerent reprisals’ in warfare and the exponential developments that have occurred in recent years with respect to war crimes and international criminal law.
Candidates for this course are advised to purchase their own copy of Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff (eds.), Documents on the Laws of War (Oxford University Press: 3rd ed., 2000).
Those candidates who wish to make contact with the instructor should email [email protected]