Question Suggested Answer(s)

What is armed conflict?

What are the sources of

international law?

What is protection?

Does international law

provide specific protection for
women or children?

What is international
humanitarian law?

What instruments make up

international humanitarian
law?

What is the difference

between the Geneva
Conventions and their
Additional Protocols in terms
of application?

What are the basic rules of

international humanitarian
law?

What kinds of acts are

prohibited in armed conflicts?

What is international human

rights law?
What is the Universal
Declaration of Human
Rights?

What are the major

international human rights
instruments?

Is human rights law also

applicable in armed
conflicts?

What kinds of human rights

are commonly violated in an
armed conflict?

What are "war crimes" and
"crimes against humanity"?
The term war crimes refers to serious breaches of international humanitarian
law committed against civilians or enemy combatants during an international
or domestic armed conflict, for which the perpetrators may be held criminally
liable on an individual basis. Such crimes are derived primarily from
the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and their Additional Protocols I
and II of 1977, and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Their most
recent codification can be found in article 8 of the 1998 Rome Statute for the
International Criminal Court (ICC)

The definition of crimes against humanity is codified in article 7 of the Rome

Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The notion encompasses
crimes such as murder, extermination, rape, persecution and all other
inhumane acts of a similar character (wilfully causing great suffering, or
serious injury to body or to mental or physical health), committed as part of a
widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with
knowledge of the attack.
How are individuals held
accountable for crimes under
international law?

What is the difference

between non-international
conflict and internal
disturbance?
What is terrorism under
international law?

What is military necessity?
The principle of military necessity permits measures which are actually
necessary to accomplish a legitimate military purpose and are not otherwise
prohibited by international humanitarian law. In the case of an armed conflict
the only legitimate military purpose is to weaken the military capacity of the
other parties to the conflict.

Military necessity generally runs counter to humanitarian exigencies.

Consequently the purpose of humanitarian law is to strike a balance between
military necessity and humanitarian exigencies.
What is principle of Article 13(2) of Additional Protocol II prohibits making the civilian population
distinction? as such, as well as individual civilians, the object of attack.[18] The prohibition
on directing attacks against civilians is also contained in Amended Protocol II
to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.[19] It is also set forth
in Protocol III to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which has
been made applicable in non-international armed conflicts pursuant to an
amendment of Article 1 of the Convention adopted by consensus in 2001.[20]
The Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines states that the
Convention is based, inter alia, on the principle that a distinction must be
made between civilians and combatants. The jurisprudence of the
International Court of Justice in the Nuclear Weapons case, of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in particular in the
Tadi case, Marti case and Kupreki case, and of the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights in the case relative to the events at La Tablada
in Argentina provides further evidence that the obligation to make a distinction
between civilians and combatants is customary in both international and non-
international armed conflicts
What is principle of While Additional Protocol II does not contain an explicit reference to the
proportionality? principle of proportionality in attack, it has been argued that it is inherent in the
principle of humanity which was explicitly made applicable to the Protocol in
its preamble and that, as a result, the principle of proportionality cannot be
ignored in the application of the Protocol.[16] The principle has been included
in more recent treaty law applicable in non-international armed conflicts,
namely Amended Protocol II to the Convention on Certain Conventional
Weapons.[17] In addition, it is included in other instruments pertaining also to
non-international armed conflicts.
In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and
civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between
the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and
military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against
military objectives. Art. 48 of Protocol I
What is military advantage? Several States have stated that the expression military advantage refers to
the advantage anticipated from the military attack considered as a whole and
not only from isolated or particular parts of that attack. The relevant provision
in the Statute of the International Criminal Court refers to the civilian injuries,
loss of life or damage being excessive in relation to the concrete and direct
overall military advantage anticipated (ICC Statute, Article 8(2)(b)(iv)) The
ICRC stated at the Rome Conference on the Statute of the International
Criminal Court that the addition of the word overall to the definition of the
crime could not be interpreted as changing existing law. Australia, Canada
 and New Zealand have stated that the term military advantage includes the
security of the attacking forces.
What is military operation?