International Humanitarian Law study notes

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These are my study notes for LL4251V International Humanitarian Law in AY 2019/2020. More on this module: International Humanitarian law (IHL), also known as the Law of Armed Conflict, is that part of Public International Law that establishes the principles for the conduct of hostilities during armed conflicts, regardless whether this occurs in a situation of warfare between states or between non-state actors. It can be used as a measure to determine the legality of means and methods of warfare applied in armed conflicts. This course will examine the fundamental concepts of IHL and its development up to the present day. It seeks to enable a critical understanding of IHL by examining the factors that influenced its development and the manner it is practiced from ancient times to the present day. Considerable emphasis will be placed on the various instruments which establishes present day rules of IHL , such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the four 1948 Geneva Conventions, the 1972 Biological Warfare Convention, the 1977 Geneva Protocols and subsequent IHL instruments such as the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, the 1996 Conventional Weapons Convention; the 1997 Landmines Convention the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, as well as the Rome Statute which established the International Criminal Court. The course will consider the effectiveness of IHL as practised today in achieving its objective of a more humane conduct of warfare in the present day international political order which is very different from the international order subsisting at the time when many of its fundamental principles and rules were formulated. This will be from the viewpoint of a developing country committed to being a responsible member of the community of states.

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