Kofanov Andrii. Certain International And Criminal Law Aspects Of The Use And Circulation Of Weapons And Ammunition During Interstate Or Civil Armed Conflicts
Social Sciences / Law / Common law and equity
Submitted on: Aug 17, 2019, 03:07:19
Description: At its 63rd session, the UN General Assembly noted that present-day armed conflicts blurred the distinction between international and internal armed conflicts. The number of civil wars has increased, and, statistically, they are more frequent than international armed conflicts. Furthermore, many of these Ecivil warsE include EexternalE components, such as support and involvement, in varying degrees, by other states that supply arms, provide training camps, financial resources, etc. The existing international humanitarian law contains provisions that govern the use of weapons. They may be divided into groups: 1. Banning and restricting specific types of weapons under international treaties. 2. Banning and restricting certain types of weapons, such as poison, biological and chemical weapons, under traditional international law. 3. General principles that govern the use of weapons under international humanitarian law. The first principle involves distinction between military objectives and civilian population, between combatants and civilians during the war. It originated in the St. Petersburg Declaration Renouncing the Use, in Time of War, of certain Explosive Projectiles dated 1868 and was subsequently codified in the Additional Protocol I of 1977 (Article 48). The second important principle involves proportionality. The scale of destruction in the conduct of a military operation should be commensurate with the importance of this operation. Article 57, Additional Protocol I of 1977, stipulates that those who plan or decide upon an attack shall take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack, and refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life. Obviously, any kind of restriction is a question of ethics and morality and therefore may be discussed and interpreted differently. As regards restrictions on certain types of weapons, it is essential to have methods that would enable...