what are the fundamental principles of the law of armed conflict (loac)?

IHL and humanitarian action cannot make up for the need to maintain peace and to reach peace again when conflicts break out. Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions explicitly states that IHL cannot be construed as legitimizing breaches of the UN Charter. The purpose of IHL is to protect people once a conflict has broken out. Importantly, this is a factual assessment, independent of the question of the legality of the resort to force between those States, which is regulated by the UN Charter.

Human rights law and refugee law are also important frameworks which provide legal protection to the victims of conflict.Īn international armed conflict exists whenever there is a resort to force between two or more States. This means that the Geneva Conventions and their First Additional Protocol are fully applicable, as are customary international humanitarian laws and a number of weapons treaties. Whereas the vast majority of wars currently taking place in the world are non-international armed conflicts, sometimes referred to as civil wars, what we are seeing happen in Ukraine is legally classified as an international armed conflict, a conflict between States, because hostilities have broken out between their armed forces.

We would like to answer some of our readers’ recent questions with a short recap of the key rules of IHL, offered along with the North Star that guides them: to limit the suffering of war. We have to be humble about humanitarian action and IHL, yet both can save lives, as they have done in many conflicts around the world. Our method is neutral and impartial humanitarian action, and our guiding framework is international humanitarian law (IHL).

Now we are here, again, trying to respond to humanitarian needs that far outpace our and others’ capacity to respond. It was clear before the dramatic increase of hostilities in Ukraine that it would entail fighting in cities, widespread death, destruction and trauma, potential environmental disasters, and that civilians – as in all armed conflicts– would bear the brunt of the consequences. Armed conflict in Ukraine: a recap of basic IHL rules.

What are the fundamental principles of the law of armed conflict (loac)?