the law of war requires humane treatment for military

when the government is obliged to use military armed forces against dissident insurgents, instead of simply the police force; or (2) non-government dissident groups must possess organized armed forces sufficient to render them parties to the conflict, meaning that they are operating under some kind of command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations within the State. They charged that Americans had committed unlawful torture. Genocide in Rwanda: In April 1994, 2,000 Tutsi civilians seeking refuge at a UN school compound in Kigali, that was guarded by a unit of armed Belgian UNAMIR forces, were ultimately abandoned by these UN protectors and then butchered by hostile and genocidal Hutu militia armed with machetes, who had for days been watching and waiting outside the school gates.[2]. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Nobelprize.org.History of the Geneva Conventions. [24] As Derbyshire states: The [New Zealand Defence Force] Manual of Military Law 1929 includes in its section on the Laws of War observations to the effect that there can, in the nature of things, be no finality regarding the law and usages of war. All of the passengers of the four civilian flights were killed, in addition to thousands of civilians of 115 different nationalities who were working in the buildings. In the territory of a High Contracting Party [State] between its armed forces and dissident armed forces or other organized armed groups which, under responsible command, exercise such control over a part of its territory as to enable them to carry out sustained and concerted military operations and to implement this Protocol. Will Terrorism Rewrite the Laws of War? : NPR It calls on the parties to the conflict to bring all or parts of the Geneva Conventions into force through"special agreements.". Young, How May Operation Iraqi Freedom [OIF] Campaigns Were There?, HIRE G.I., 14 July 2018, https://hiregi.com/2018/07/14/how-many-operation-iraqi-freedom-oif-campaigns-were-there/, (accessed 1 May 2019). [15] Derbyshire, Section Four: When and to Whom Does LOAC Apply, p. 2, Section One: Introduction to LOAC and Historical Development, p. 3, and 149.335 Introduction to LOAC in Section One: Introduction to LOAC and Historical Development, p. 7, 149.335 Law of Armed Conflict, ibid. Further, additional regulations regarding the treatment of civilians were introduced. [16] Derbyshire, 149.335 Introduction to LOAC, in Section One: Introduction to LOAC and Historical Development, 149.335 Law of Armed Conflict, ibid., p. 13. This means that ratified laws of the LOAC must be applied and adhered to by the nations armed forces at all times during peacetime, during war, and during all the various stages of the war spectrum in-between these conflict poles, ranging from non-kinetic and non-traditional peacekeeping operations, at one end of the spectrum, to overtly kinetic, offensive warfare operations, on the other. No doubt the procedure was tough, but medical experts assured the CIA that it did no lasting harm. As military professionals, [Tommy] Franks and I spent many hours examining the reasons for attacking Iraq, and asking ourselves if they were sound. Where domestic law does not allow for the exercise of universal jurisdiction, a Statemust introduce the necessary domestic legislative provisions before it can do so, and must actually exercise the jurisdiction, unless it hands the suspect over to another country or international tribunal. One of the treaties created during the 1949 Convention, this defined "Prisoner of War," and accorded such prisoners proper and humane treatment as specified by the first Convention. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols On February 7, 2002 -- ten years ago to the day, tomorrow -- President George W. Bush signed a brief memorandum titled "Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees." The caption . In 1929, updates were made to further the civilized treatment of prisoners of war. All service men and women on military operations worldwide have a personal duty and obligation to act lawfully by obeying the LOAC during their service in the military, no-matter the military situation in peace or in war, and no-matter the location of deployment at home or abroad. [4] J. Derbyshire (MAJ, New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF)), 149.335 Introduction to LOAC, in Section One: Introduction to LOAC and Historical Development, 149.335 Law of Armed Conflict, Centre for Defence Studies, Massey University College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 2008, p. 5. For under the LOAC, Detaining Powers are clearly permitted to question detainees in order to ascertain their identity and status and to obtain information of military value, and are generally allowed to use skilful interrogation to induce detainees to provide intelligence of worth (NZDF LOAC Manual Chapter 15: Prisoners of War and other persons deprived of their liberty in the course of armed conflict, in Section Nine: Prisoners of War and Other Persons Deprived of Their Liberty. At the time, some were concerned we werent pushing hard enough. In the wake of 9/11, that was a risk I was unwilling to take. This. The riots were essentially a deliberate attempt to conduct reverse ethnic cleansing against the Kosovar Serb population, in direct if belated retaliation for the Serb ethnic cleansing that had been carried out against pro-independence minorities during the previous decade from 1991-1995 in Bosnia and Croatia (see blog #23 Caveat Chaos in Kosovo: Divided Allies & Fettered Forces in NATOs KFOR Operation during the 2004 Kosovo Riots). That view was reinforced by his boasting and his behavior, intended to persuade his own people and his neighbors of that success. A punitive war took place firstly in Afghanistan in 2001 against the Taliban regime hosting and shielding Osama Bin Laden, the leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. The new techniques proved highly effective., Of the thousands of terrorists we captured in the years after 9/11, about a hundred were placed into the CIA program. This variation in interpretation is especially apparent with respect to, or in contrast to, practices of lawful interrogation in response to national security threats or during national security emergencies where the State is seeking to fulfil its primary responsibility and duty to protect the lives of its citizens. international treaties, conventions, pacts, agreements and protocols), according to the LOAC, certain obligations and rights apply universally, to all States, and all individuals, at all times due to the binding obligations that exist under Customary International Law (CIL). Indeed, inevitably, the whole issue comes down to one single question: is it disproportionate and wrong or proportional and right? Subsequently a preventative pre-emptive war took place in Iraq against Saddam Husseins dictatorship during 2003, which: firstly, had been meeting with senior Al Qaeda leaders; secondly, was cooperating with and housing Al Qaeda members at a chemical and biological weapons-testing laboratory situated at an Iraqi base near the Iranian border (including the notorious Al Qaeda attack-planner, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi); and thirdly, was strongly suspected internationally of having stockpiles of illegal biological and chemical Weapons of Mass destruction (WMD),in addition to nuclear material from its nuclear development programme, that, given the regimes long and proven record of support for terrorism, it was feared Saddam might easily give or sell to Al Qaeda terrorists to enhance and further their attacks in America and around the world (see endnote). pp. Assess the progress that the U.S. and its allies were making against the Al Qaeda terrorist network, and other terrorist groups, by means of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). Indeed, it seemed to the U.S. government that they were in unchartered LOAC territory faced with a new class of non-State, unlawful combatant, in a new kind of international war against non-State terrorist militants and their State supporters/protectors, that was neither foreseen nor governed by the laws of war contained in the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Within this resiliently-enduring Westphalian system, State and Non-State actors continue to form the basic building blocks of the international system today, and the fundamental parties and actions within a conflict can be identified even within very complex conflicts, meaning that categorisation of wars into International and Non-International armed conflict can still take place. . But as the years went by, Saddam became much more aggressive in limiting the reach of the inspectors, and the inspections for all practical purposes ended in 1998. [4], (1) To ensure minimum protections are given to the victims of war during armed conflict; and. They charged that Americans had committed unlawful torture. Civilians and detained combatants or fighters are entitled to respect for their physical and mental integrity, their honour, family rights, religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs. 4 of 8) It does not justify prohibited actions (correct) It justifies the use of overwhelming force, but not wanton destruction (correct) Humanity is a principle of the Law of War that addresses the immunity of peaceful populations and civilian objects from attack. Law of war - Limits on the methods and means of war Not surprisingly, the disconnect and outright contradiction between the KFOR mission mandate and its key security objectives on the one hand, and the restrictive ROE of contributed KFOR national contingents on the other, had direct and serious consequences during the Kosovo Riots of 2004. If judges are honest and the compass of justice truly points north in law-abiding nations, to whom members of the armed forces belong, then any individual member of the Armed Forces who disobeyed superior orders that were manifestly illegal under the LOAC, in order to uphold the binding obligations and rights under the LOAC, ought not fail to be exonerated of any crime or wrong-doing during any subsequent civilian or military trial. As a result of this ambiguity under the LOAC surrounding lawful interrogation techniques versus true, unlawful torture, intense and controversial debate about these matters raged between 2006-2008, and continue to the present day. 37,770,554 questions answered * weegy [28], Between 2001-2006, Al Qaeda terrorists and local/foreign extremist insurgents captured in the territories of Afghanistan or Iraq committing acts of terror or violence against either Allied coalition forces or the new national governments, their forces, or their civilian population, were classed by the United States (U.S.) as non-State and unlawful Enemy combatants of International armed conflicts between States under the LOAC (where unlawful Enemy combatant means persons not entitled to combatant immunity who have committed acts in violation of the laws and customs of war during an armed conflict).[29]. Added 10/28/2021 4:10:29 PM This answer has been confirmed as correct and helpful. Yet as even a cursory examination of the history of the nation's laws of war shows, presidents from Washington to Reagan and beyond have long championed the idea of humane treatment of prisoners . 61-62 in Geneva Convention II, pp. cit. In sum, the tragic results of government-imposed caveat constraints on national forces within these three international security missions springing from a crippling unwillingness within government to allow their national military forces to use force when necessary were the commission by hostile belligerents of war crimes against both civilians and civilian objects within the missions. to inflict lawful pain and suffering on a law-breaking person, who has planned, acted and desired to inflict unlawful pain, suffering and death on innocent multitudes, in order to prevent acts of terrorism and thereby save the lives and limbs of countless, law-abiding citizens? Intelligence information is much more often imprecise than it is precise[Included in our intelligence analysis was] WMD from the last Gulf War, the [testimony of Saddams defecting] son-in-law who gave information, [and the] monumental reams of intercepted information (cited in DeLong. Germany signed the Convention of 1929, however, that didnt prevent them from carrying out horrific acts on and off the battlefield and within their military prison camps and civilian concentration camps during World War II. The truth is that modern conflict has become so extremely complex, intractable and mixed in current times, displaying simultaneously features of both International and Non-International armed conflict especially in modern anti-terrorism campaigns waged against Islamist terrorist groups and terror-using insurgencies in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and Asia that it has created grey zones with regard to the appropriate LOAC that leave room for diverse legal interpretation between nations and new evolutions in customs of CIL. I had asked the most senior legal officers in the U.S. government to review the interrogation methods, and they had assured me they did not constitute torture. Some of these LOAC obligations have been so universally ratified and accepted as customary norms worldwide over the last century, that they have become extremely powerful and are now internationally regarded as binding on all military and non-military combatant forces, in all places, and at all times, during all the stages of conflict that exist on the scale between peace and war. [30], In a landmark case Hamdi v Rumsfeld, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the U.S. governments inter-State International LOAC categorisation of the conflicts and ruled instead (with two dissenting judges) that these captured terrorists and insurgents were in fact non-State and unlawful Enemy combatants of intra-State, Non-International armed conflicts, since armed conflict was taking place against a non-State actor, the terrorist network Al Qaeda, in the territory of countries that were party to the Geneva Conventions (e.g. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. No one size fits all legal approach to terrorism, particularly as to the judicial nature of the situation and the classification of suspected terrorists, is, or has proved to be, feasible in practice.[38], Two slides taken from the Google TimeLapse terrorism project, which has tracked and displayed terrorist attacks that occur worldwide each year over a twenty-year period from 1997-2017.[39]. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/geneva-convention, medical personnel, facilities and equipment, wounded and sick civilians accompanying military forces, civilians who take up arms to fight invading forces, hospital ships cannot be used for any military purpose nor captured or attacked, captured religious leaders must be returned immediately, all sides must attempt to rescue any shipwrecked personnel, even those from another side of the conflict, theyre only required to give their name, rank, birth date and serial number when captured, they must receive suitable housing and adequate amounts of food, they must not be discriminated against for any reason, they have the right to correspond with family and receive care packages, the Red Cross has the right to visit them and examine their living conditions. condition requires that each belligerent have the ability to retaliate when the other belligerent violates the laws of war. A committee was formedwhich included Dunant and an early iteration of the Red Crossin Geneva to explore ways to implement Dunants ideas. It also identified new protections and rights of civilian populations. Your email address will not be published. Articles with the HISTORY.com Editors byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan and Matt Mullen. PDF DoD Directive 2310.01E, 'DoD Detainee Program,' March 15, 2022 Seven new ratifications since 2000 have brought the total number of States Party to 194, making the Geneva Conventions universally applicable. Our conclusion was that they wereGiven all of this information, and given that the CIA had made a judgement call based on this information, President Bush, in my opinion, would have been negligent not to act (DeLong, A General Speaks Out, ibid., pp.66, 69). At the time, some were concerned we werent pushing hard enough. This is because LOAC constitutes the highest law governing armed conflict in the world today and is the ultimate legal standard internationally for the lawful conduct of war. Had we captured more al Qaeda operatives with significant intelligence value, I would have used the program for them as well (Bush, Decision Points, ibid., pp. Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War ADOPTED 12 August 1949 BY the Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of International Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War, held in Geneva from 21 April to 12 August 1949 Share View ratification status by country Table of Contents Part I It grants the ICRC the right to offer its services to the parties to the conflict. [15], CIL refers to practices in warfare that are so consistently upheld and adhered to by a majority of States on the world stage that they have become generally regarded as law. [14] Derbyshire, 149.335 Prevention and Punishment of Breaches of LOAC, in Section Twelve: International Criminal Court and Enforcement, 149.335 Law of Armed Conflict, ibid., p. 10. when the government is obliged to use military armed forces against dissident insurgents, instead of simply the police force; or (2) non-government dissident groups must possess organized armed forces sufficient to render them parties to the conflict, meaning that they are operating under some kind of command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations within the State. terrorist attacks, do. The principle of humane treatment in IHL requires that those who fall into the hands of the enemy be treated with respect for their dignity as human beings. [20] Derbyshire, NZDF LOAC Manual Chapter 15: Prisoners of War and other persons deprived of their liberty in the course of armed conflict in Section Nine: Prisoners of War and Other Persons Deprived of Their Liberty, pp. JKO Joint Staff Law of War (Abridged) I Hate CBT's I'll also focus on Department of Defense policies with respect to the law of war and the current conflict with Iraq and Iraqi violations of the law of war. American Red Cross.The Battle of Solferino. I had asked the most senior legal officers in the U.S. government to review the interrogation methods, and they had assured me they did not constitute torture. So I supported Bush 43s decision to invade and bring Saddam down. 'Common Article 3' - the article common to all four of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 which alone treats 'Non-International' armed conflict - requires that, in addition to humane treatment for all military personnel 'hors de combat' or taken 'Prisoner of War' in International armed conflicts, all persons not taking an active . The result was unanimous adoption in the fall of 2002 of UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which demanded a full accounting of progress in Iraqs weapons programs and a rigorous international inspection effort. It was considered that this LOAC classification change would not only give more formal legal protection to the captured terrorists and extremist insurgents, but also automatically rule out any further use of enhanced interrogation techniques to extract actionable intelligence from the detainees no matter how effective or successful they were which advocates of the classification change deemed inhumane and a form of torture illegal under CIL (see endnote for a discussion on torture, and refer to American President George W. Bushs argument provided in endnote #30 above).[33]. This question remains an extremely serious and crucial conundrum in the modern era of warfare and terrorism today. To suggest that our intelligence personnel violated the law by following the legal guidance they received is insulting and wrong. The severest of these interrogation tactics was supervised waterboarding a technique used on 3 of the highest ranking, most knowledgeable and most obstinate Al Qaeda terrorists in American custody (see endnote). Gates states the following in his memoir: None of us doubted in the early 1990s that, just as soon as he could, Saddam would resume the programs he had under way before the [Gulf] war to develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. The horrific suffering Dunant saw impacted him so greatly he wrote a first-hand account in 1862 called A Memory of Solferino. Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. c. In accordance with DoDD 2311.01, all persons subject to this issuance will report 100, April 24, 1863) was the military law that governed the wartime conduct of the Union Army by defining and describing command responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity; and the military responsibilities of the Union soldier fighting the American Civil War (1861-1865) against the Confederate States of America. terrorist attacks, do not comprise armed conflict and are therefore not governed by the LOAC on Non-International armed conflict. International armed conflict is defined in Common Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions as: All cases of declared war, or of any other armed conflict, which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties (States), even if the state of war is not recognised by one of them, All cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance. The Swiss Government agreed to hold the Conventions in Geneva, and a few years later, a similar agreement to protect shipwrecked soldiers was produced. 168-171. In 1977, Protocols I and II were added to the Conventions of 1949. [2] Modified image taken from P. Gourevitch, After the Genocide, The New Yorker [Magazine], 18 December 1995, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/12/18/after-the-genocide, (accessed 14 September 2017). After we implemented the CIA program, we briefed a small number of lawmakers from both parties on its existence. Under this classification of the LOAC, Taliban and Al Qaeda militants were not entitled to the Prisoner of War (PW) protections given to lawful combatants under Geneva Convention III, nor entitled to any protections from any of the other three Geneva Conventions (regarding lawful combatants that are hors de combat on land or at sea, and protections given to civilians), that together govern International Armed Conflict. [27] M. De Long (Lt. Gen.) & N. Lukeman, A General Speaks Out [originally published as Inside CentCom: the unvarnished truth about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq], Zenith Press, St. Paul (MN), 2007, p. 68. PDF '(3$570(17 2) '()(16( /$: 2) :$5 0$18$/ - U.S. Department of Defense In the following blog, #25 Laws of War Brief (Part 2): The Protections, Rights & Obligations of Civilian Non-Combatants & Military Combatants under the LOAC , I will continue this analysis by presenting what is, to the best of my understanding, the most important, mandatory and need-to-know obligations of the LOAC and CIL on all individual military personnel of national armed forces of all ranks, all Services, and all nations around the world. unlawful perpetrators of war crimes and excessive human suffering rather than victims these captured unlawful combatants had few rights or protections under the LOAC. In particular, heated controversy surrounds knowledgeable terrorists or terror-using insurgents captured operating in warzones, who are by definition not only unlawful combatants under the laws of war but also war criminals guilty of committing indiscriminate acts of terror and mass-murder, and who possess extensive knowledge of terrorist members, organisation, and plots for future attacks that if obtained might save the lives of countless other human beings, including many innocent civilians. [21], Common Article 3: The article common to all four of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which is also an accepted and established customary norm of CIL, requiring that all persons that are not taking an active part in hostilities within a Non-International intra-State armed conflict be treated humanely in all circumstances, regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, birth, wealth or any other similar criteria. [23] Derbyshire, 149.335 Introduction to LOAC, in Section One: Introduction to LOAC and Historical Development, 149.335 Law of Armed Conflict, op. Added 10/28/2021 4:10:29 PM This answer has been confirmed as correct and helpful. [10], Non-International armed conflicts typically involve civil wars in which: (a) the government of a State is using its regular armed forces to fight against one or more identifiable, dissident armed groups operating within the territory of the State; or (b) armed and hostile fighting is taking place between dissident, rival armed groups within a State, that does not involve the government, but nevertheless requires the government to act to restore security and stability to the State.[11]. All detainees will be treated humanely and with respect in accordance with applicable U.S. law and policy and the law of war. [12] Customary International Humanitarian Law, The Magazine of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement [Magazine], 2005, p. 2, http://www.redcross.int/EN/mag/magazine2005_2/24-25.htm (accessed 28 August 2008). In a clinical sense, any armed conflict that does not conform to the IAC definition provided in Common Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions or Article 1 of Additional Protocol I must ipso facto be regarded and treated as a NIAC armed conflict. The severest of these interrogation tactics was supervised waterboarding a technique used on 3 of the highest ranking, most knowledgeable and most obstinate Al Qaeda terrorists in American custody (see endnote). The complexity of modern conflict today however with wars increasingly involving features of, In a clinical sense, any armed conflict that does not conform to the IAC definition provided in Common Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions or Article 1 of Additional Protocol I must. 3 of 8) All of the above It also specifies the rights of internees (POWs) and saboteurs. However, CIL is founded on general, rather than unanimous, international recognition and agreement. [1] Winston S. Churchill, Memoirs of the Second World War An abridgement of the six volumes of The Second World War, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1959, p. 12. Humane treatment includes: be treated with respect for their dignity as human beings. Humane treatment includes: (Military Persons Exempt From Attack, pg. Torture has been defined in the Rome Statute as: The intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions (Article 7(2)(e) available to view here: https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf). Ukraine Diary: Spring flowers bloom in Kyiv's streets, a sign of life returning to the city. receive humane treatment, to have contact with humanitarian organizations, and . In response, two Protocols Additional to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions were adopted in 1977. Non-International armed conflict, by contrast, is the classification given to all forms of armed conflict that do not conform to, and are hence not covered by, the definition of International armed conflict provided above.
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