Examining the Effectiveness and Practical Reality of International Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts
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Date
2025-05-28
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Uganda Christian University
Abstract
The International humanitarian law (IHL), also known as the law of armed conflict, is a set of rules which seeks to limit the humanitarian impact of war by regulating the conduct of hostilities and protecting those not or no longer participating in war. International Humanitarian Law protects civilian, restricts the means and methods of warfare. Armed conflicts are divide into international armed conflicts and non-international armed conflicts . The Common Article 2 of the 1949 Geneva Convention has defined International Armed Conflict (IAC) as any armed conflict or declared war between two or more High Contracting Parties. This was also defined in the case of prosecutor verses Tadic where an international armed conflict was defined to mean the use of armed force between states . Further, according to additional protocol 1 of the Geneva conventions, armed conflict was also defined to include conflicts by liberation movements. Non international armed conflicts on the other hand has been defined as an armed conflict between a state and an organized armed group or between two organized armed groups within the territory of a state. In this study, the researcher set out to examine how, and whether IHL are effective in protecting human subjects during armed conflicts by imposing limits on the destruction and suffering caused by armed conflict.