The Geneva Conventions Under Assault

Description

Outrages committed during violent conflict and as part of the 'war on terror' are not only an affront to human dignity, they also violate the Geneva Conventions.



Looking at high-profile cases of repeated and open abuse of the Conventions, the book reveals how attempts to undermine the Geneva Conventions as incompatible with the age of 'global terror' will create a less secure and more volatile world. From normalising torture in Guantanamo, to new technical and tactical developments that challenge the standing of the conventions, the contributors reveal how even individuals in the most powerful countries face the prospect of a horrifying vulnerability.

Preface

Abbreviations and Acronyms

1. The Geneva Conventions and the Normative Tenor of International Relations by Sonia Cardenas

2. The History and Status of the Geneva Conventions by Wade Mansell and Karen Openshaw

3. The Principle of Proportionality in the Law of Armed Conflict by Françoise Hampson

4. Civilian Protection – What’s Left of the Norm? by Stuart Gordon

5. The Protection of Detainees in International Humanitarian Law by Keiichiro Okimoto

6. Non-Lethal Weapons: A Rose by any Other Name by Nick Lewer

7. From ‘Total War’ to ‘Total Operations’ – Contemporary Doctrine and Adherence to IHL by Björn Müller-Wille

8. The Paradox of Value Discourses by Helen Dexter

9. Freeing Force from Legal Constraint by Jim Whitman

10. Undermining International Humanitarian Law and the Politics of Liberal Democracies by Sarah Perrigo

About the Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Human Rights
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Droit et juridique
• Law
• International

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 02 février 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849644006
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Geneva Conventions Under Assault

THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS UNDER ASSAULT

Edited by SarahPerrigoandJimWhitman

First published 2010 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

www.plutobooks.com

Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

Copyright © Sarah Perrigo and Jim Whitman 2010

The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN ISBN

978 0 7453 2914 7 978 0 7453 2913 0

Hardback Paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.

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Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, 33 Livonia Road, Sidmouth, EX10 9JB England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed and bound in the European Union by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

To Georgia

Your courage, good humour and consideration for others in the face of adversity continue to inspire me.

Contents

Preface Abbreviations and Acronyms

 1. The Geneva Conventions and the Normative Tenor of International Relations  Sonia Cardenas  2. The History and Status of the Geneva Conventions  Wade Mansell and Karen Openshaw  3. The Principle of Proportionality in the Law of Armed Conflict  Françoise Hampson  4. Civilian Protection – What’s Left of the Norm?  Stuart Gordon  5. The Protection of Detainees in International Humanitarian Law  Keiichiro Okimoto  6. Non-Lethal Weapons: A Rose by any Other Name  Nick Lewer  7. From ‘Total War’ to ‘Total Operations’ – Contemporary Doctrine and Adherence to IHL  Björn Müller-Wille  8. The Paradox of Value Discourses  Helen Dexter  9. Freeing Force from Legal Constraint  Jim Whitman 10. Undermining International Humanitarian Law and the Politics of Liberal Democracies  Sarah Perrigo

About the Contributors Index

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Preface

Sarah Perrigo and Jim Whitman

Not all of the contributors to this volume subscribe to the idea that the Geneva Conventions are under assault, as we have chosen to describe the current state of affairs – even though all of us have particular concerns over their comprehensiveness, their resilience in the face of serious and repeated violations and/or their adaptability with respect to a range of practical and political developments. Our decision to adopt this phrase was based not so much on the number and seriousness of recent violations, but on the stand of outright defiance and contempt that have accompanied a few recent instances in particular. Our own view, as several of the chapters in this volume argue in detail, is that the relegation of the Geneva Conventions either to inadequacy (most notably with respect to the ‘war on terror’) or irrelevance in the face of declared, overriding exigencies, undermine the Geneva Conventions as an interna- tionally shared, normative expectation much more seriously and quickly than the fact of any one or a number of recent violations of its strictures. Moreover, although we recognize that within the compass of international humanitarian law (IHL), the laws that concern the protection of the victims of armed conflict and those that concern the means and methods of warfare are distinct, our principal concern is with the integrity of a normative movement that is concerned with unnecessary and preventable human suffering during war. For this reason the ‘Geneva Conventions’ of the title encompasses both the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the two additional protocols of 1977. Yet at the outset, some readers might consider that ‘under assault’ overstates either the intentions or the effects of violations of the Geneva Conventions. However, we regard the standing, meaning and force of the Geneva Conventions as an ongoing normative enterprise as much as a binding legal document – distinct from, but closely bound up with the other great normative movement that has shaped lived expectation throughout the world: the human rights regime. To dismiss the particulars of one or the other, or to resort to forms of instrumental reasoning or declarations of exceptionalism

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