As a general matter, international humanitarian law is up to the task of providing the legal framework for cyber operations during an armed conflict. However, two debates persist in this regard, the resolution of which will determine the precise degree of protection the civilian population will enjoy during cyber operations. The first revolves around the meaning of the term “attack” in various conduct of hostilities rules, while the second addresses the issue of whether data may be considered an object such that operations destroying or altering it are subject to the prohibition on attacking civilian objects and that their effects need be considered when considering proportionality and the taking of precautions in attack. Even if these debates were to be resolved, the civilian population would still face risks from the unique capabilities of cyber operations. This article proposes two policies that parties to a conflict should consider adopting in order to ameliorate such risks. They are both based on the premise that military operations must reflect a balance between military concerns and the interest of States in prevailing in the conflict.

The condition of our planet today is, to say the least, a cause for great concern. As recently stated by Ms. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway and Chairman of the World Commission on Environment and Development: “We are living in an historic transitional period in which awareness of the conflict between human activities and environmental constraints is literally exploding”. A decisive battle is now under way to preserve a truly endangered planet from the threat of extinction.

This article presents the findings of a long-term study of the circumstances of displaced persons in Khartoum and Bogotá. It explores the similarities and differences between these contexts and how they have evolved. The study shows that while the two situations raise fairly similar issues, the policy decisions taken differ widely, impacting on how various actors cope with the phenomenon.

This article identifies five factors that will shape the legal implications of the use of autonomous military systems. It contends that the systems which present legal challenges are those programmed to “make decisions” that are regulated by law. In so doing, they transfer control of, and responsibility for, those decisions away from those who have been traditionally seen as decision-makers to persons responsible for developing and deploying the system. The article also suggests that there may be limits to the extent to which the rules of international humanitarian law can appropriately regulate the altered relationship between soldiers and their increasingly autonomous weapon systems.

While treating the humanitarian organizations themselves as rational actors, this article considers the factors that influence the decisions and the current logic of Western humanitarian organizations in their dealings with local organizations. This reflection necessarily leads to a re-examination of the current structure of these organizations and to proposed scenarios to identify the best methods for the future, particularly in the relational framework between international organizations and their local partners. Ultimately, the humanitarian organization interventional model must be broadened, taking local humanitarian capacity-building into greater consideration.

War separates families; it separates prisoners of war from the Power on which they depend and civilians from their country of origin or residence. Uncertainty about what has happened to a loved one who is missing on the battlefield or in enemy-controlled territory is much more difficult to bear than the news that he has been captured and interned by the enemy, or sometimes even that he is dead. Moreover, registering a captured person helps to protect him. The provisions for obtaining, collating and transmitting this type of information are a major step forward in international humanitarian law. The National Information Bureau (hereinafter NIB) plays a key role in the system laid down for this purpose by the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The NIB has the important but difficult task of obtaining and transmitting information on protected persons of the adverse party who are in the hands of the party to the conflict to which the NIB belongs.

Countless historic monuments, works of art and places of worship have been destroyed in recent conflicts, despite the fact that cultural property, as part of the cultural heritage of all mankind, is protected by the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954 — the fiftieth anniversary of which is being celebrated this year — and by other provisions of international humanitarian law, in particular Articles 53 and 16 respectively of Protocols I and II additional to the Geneva Conventions. his article retraces the origin and development of the main rules of international law adopted to safeguard cultural property in the event of armed conflict, and shows their place in the context of international humanitarian law.

In 1948, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted, human rights and humanitarian law were treated as separate fields. Since the 1968 Tehran International Conference on Human Rights, the situation has changed dramatically and the two subjects are now considered as different branches of the same discipline. A number of factors have contributed to this merger, including the growing significance of international criminal law and the criminalization of serious violations of human rights. This is the theme of the present comment.

Every day, and in a range of contexts, the use of explosive weapons in populated areas harms civilians. Evidence is growing that elevated levels of civilian harm fit a recurrent pattern, suggesting that more coherent and effective humanitarian responses are needed to enhance civilian protection, especially changes in behaviour of users of explosive weapons. This article describes the effects of explosive violence, critically examines how the existing humanitarian law regime tends to address this issue and explores some current developments in building a research and policy agenda to try to reduce civilian harm from the use of explosive weapons.

This article examines the meaning and purpose of the Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement during and after decolonization. This was a period when the character of conflict experienced far-reaching changes, when the limitations of international humanitarian law were sharply exposed, and when humanitarian organizations of all kinds – the International Committee of the Red Cross included – redefined their missions and mandates. The Fundamental Principles were caught up in these processes; subject to a resurgent State sovereignty, they were both animated and constrained by the geopolitical forces of the era. The article pays particular attention to the politicization of the Principles in the contexts of colonial counter-insurgency, political detention and transfers of power.

The request by the United Nations General Assembly, in resolution 49/75 K (1994), that the International Court give an advisory opinion on the question “Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance permitted under international law?” gave the Court an unusual opportunity to consider the principles of international humanitarian law. It is an opportunity which the Court might well have preferred to do without. The question was not well framed and the reasons for asking it were wholly unsatisfactory. In particular, the necessarily abstract nature of the question placed the Court in an exceptionally difficult position, because it could not possibly consider all the combinations of circumstances in which nuclear weapons might be used or their use threatened. Yet unless one takes the position that the use of nuclear weapons is always lawful (which is obvious nonsense), falls wholly outside the law (which no State suggested) or is always unlawful (a view which has had some supporters but which the majority of the Court quite rightly rejected), then the answer to the General Assembly's question would have to depend upon a careful examination of those circumstances.

Funding agreements for humanitarian action frequently include restrictions and requirements in their grants that aim to ensure that recipients of the funding comply with counterterrorism measures and sanctions adopted by the donor. These measures can be problematic if they prevent humanitarian actors from operating in accordance with humanitarian principles or are incompatible with international humanitarian law. While attention has focused primarily on requirements in grants for humanitarian action, increasingly donors to development work have also started including sanctions- and counterterrorism-related restrictions in their grants. The present article focuses on one such measure that is currently a live concern: requirements to screen and, thus, potentially exclude final beneficiaries. It explains why these requirements go over and above what sanctions and counterterrorism measures require, and why they are inconsistent with humanitarian principles and international humanitarian law. The article also explores the position in relation to development interventions.

On 10 October 1980, the “United Nations Conference on Prohibitions or Restrictions of Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects” ended with the adoption by consensus of the following instruments:

– Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons,

– Protocol on Non-Detectable Fragments (Protocol I),

– Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices (Protocol II),

– Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons (Protocol III).

Have the various profound changes that have affected the world, and particularly its geostrategic dimensions, since the end of the Cold War radically altered the nature of conflicts? Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and ten years after the destruction of the twin towers in New York, there is an apparent degree of continuity in the resilience of former centres of unresolved conflicts and of armed groups involved in them. Nonetheless, whereas most armed conflicts can today be classified as ‘intra-state’, the general context has changed to the extent that reference is now made to the phenomenon of ‘new wars’. Increasingly inacceptable economic and political imbalances along with globalization, environmental damage and its consequences or the emergence of large-scale conflicts triggered by organized crime are some of the perils already affecting the nature of today's conflicts or potentially defining those of the future. As the period dominated by jihadist groups with a universalist vocation possibly draws to an end, the current trend seems to be towards a new generation of guerrilla fighters who stand to benefit, in particular, from the erosion of the nation-state and from geopolitical convulsions arising from the post-colonial legacy as the starting point for intensely zealous and violent long-term ventures. The impact of globalization could cause a flare-up of some existing conflicts that are currently limited in scope while the international community struggles to redefine other rules and to adapt them to the new dialectic of war and peace.

Members of independent humanitarian organizations have less protection, legally speaking, than most of them probably think. Two key features of their work – their neutrality and independence – as well as practical steps they take to implement these principles, actually place them outside much of the protection afforded to either civilians or authorized medical staff. This article examines the international legal protection currently available to independent humanitarian organizations, and considers whether there is scope for improvement of both the content of this framework and respect for the same.

This article looks at the issue of enforced disappearances of migrants during their migratory journey or once they have reached their destination, a subject yet to be addressed in the literature. It examines how the legal and analytical framework provided by international human rights law and migration law applies to enforced disappearances of migrants. It then reviews the factors that contribute to this phenomenon in different contexts, including the disappearance of migrants for political reasons, those that take place in detention and deportation processes and those that take place within the context of migrant smuggling and trafficking.

Contemporary political analyses and studies concerning Islam often bear the mark of ethical values and judgements that obtain in the cultural context of the authors.

In this respect, two main tendencies can be discerned. The first, which we might call “Western-centred”, is to be found in the works of specialists in Oriental or Islamic studies who have been trained in the West and are thence impregnated with its culture. When analysing Islam, they judge it on the basis of the moral or political norms pertaining in the West. The second, which could be characterised as “apologetic”, generally finds its reflection in the writings of Moslem thinkers who, reacting against the first school's attacks on Islam, try to glorify it and, in particular, set out to identify in Islam all the cultural notions and inventions of the modern world, in other words, the Western world. According to this second school, Islam is, for example, the inventor and disseminator of democratic government, socialism, the separation of powers, human rights and humanitarian law.

Many aid agencies and commentators suggest that humanitarian principles are of little value to the humanitarian crises of today. However, through profiling the experience of the Lebanese Red Cross, this article highlights the enduring value and impact of the application of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Fundamental Principles as effective operational tools for acceptance, access and safety. Having suffered a series of security incidents during the civil war and subsequent disturbances and tensions, this National Society deliberately sought to increase its acceptance amongst different groups. One of the approaches used was the systematic operational application of the Fundamental Principles. Today, the Lebanese Red Cross is the only public service and Lebanese humanitarian actor with access throughout the country. This article seeks to address the relative absence of attention to how humanitarian organisations apply humanitarian principles in practice – and their responsibility and accountability to do so – by describing the systematic approach of the Lebanese Red Cross.