Assessing Reprisals as an Alternative to Judicial Proceedings for Enforcing Compliance with International Humanitarian Law

Countermeasures are an established mechanism in International Law that allows a State to respond to the unlawful actions of another. This tool enables the injured State to act in a way that would otherwise be illegal, with the objective of compelling the breaching State to cease its violations. Similarly, the concept of belligerent reprisals refers to a similar mechanism in International Humanitarian Law (IHL), which allows a State to violate IHL rules in response to the previous violations of another State in order to enforce compliance. It has been a part of armed conflicts throughout history, and its codification can be traced back to the earliest iterations of IHL. Over time, the scope and permissibility of reprisals have become significantly more constrained. Today, their regulation is primarily governed by customary International Humanitarian Law (CIHL), which draws upon the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Customary Rules and established case law. This article will examine the exact legal boundaries of belligerent reprisals and evaluate the practice.

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The Role of International Humanitarian Law in Human Rights Bodies: A Focus on the European Court of Human Rights

In the absence of a judicial body that would specifically deal with International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the role of its interpretation and enforcement often falls on human rights bodies, like the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). This article will begin by recalling the theories developed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). An analysis will then be conducted on the interplay between human rights and international humanitarian law within the European Court of Human Rights Jurisprudence. The Court’s judgments in the Al-Jedda and Hassan cases will be examined to understand how ECtHR interprets the relationship between human rights and IHL and, subsequently how this affects the protection granted to individuals by the European Convention on Human Rights.

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