International Humanitarian Law

International Humanitarian law (IHL), also known as the Law of Armed Conflict, 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 international legality of means and methods of warfare applied in a situation of armed conflict. 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 the various instruments that establishes present day rules of IHL , such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the four 1948 Geneva Conventions, the 1977 Geneva Protocols and subsequent IHL instruments including the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, the 1996 Conventional Weapons Convention; the 1997 Landmines Convention as well as the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court. The course will also consider the applicability as well as the appropriateness of the rules and the systems established by these instruments in the light of Customary International Law and the present day world political order. This will be from the viewpoint of a developing country which has minimal or no influence in the formulation of these rules.