Journal of Conflict and Security Law - Advance Access

The Responsibility to Protect: The Role of International Human Rights Law

McClean, E. — 2008-06-30

This article explores the potential of the responsibility to protect, having gained the support of the member states of the United Nations (UN) at the 2005 World Summit, as a framework for the UN to address genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. It is argued that in order for the UN to harness this potential of the responsibility to protect a number of obstacles and challenges – normative, institutional and operational – must be overcome and that international human rights law has a central, if not pivotal, role in this regard thereby strengthening the responsibility to protect as a framework for the UN to address genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Benjamin J. Goold and Liora Lazarus (eds.), Security and Human Rights

Odello, M. — 2008-06-30

The Continuing Role for Belligerent Reprisals

Sutter, P. — 2008-06-18

The enforcement of the law of war has always been a difficult proposition. It has become even more difficult in recent conflicts given the propensity of combatants to employ unlawful violence to further their cause. Such horrific conduct begs the question, how does the law of war restrain violators? There are many potential methods, among them war crimes tribunals and international mediation, but the subject of this article is the final enforcement mechanism: belligerent reprisals. It is a doctrine that responds to unlawful conduct by inflicting the same violation upon the violators in order to force them to cease. The doctrine of reprisals has fallen into disuse as numerous commentators suggest that it is no longer effective and soon to slip into complete illegality. However, reprisals utilizing a prohibited weapon remain lawful. And, for a number of states, reprisals against captured enemy combatants remain lawful. Violating the law of war, even in a manner it allows, is a repugnant act, yet an even more repugnant act is to allow an adversary to violate that same law with impunity.