Humanitarian Law: From Normative Thrust to Criminal Enforcement

Abstract

Pictet has defined humanitarian law as ‘a branch of public international law which owes its inspiration to a feeling for humanity and which is centered on the protection of the individual’. Its purpose is ‘to alleviate the sufferings of all the victims of armed conflicts who are in the power of their enemy, whether wounded, sick or shipwrecked, prisoners of war or civilians’ More formally, he has completed this definition as follows:

By ‘international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts’, the International Committee of the Red Cross means international rules, established by treaties or custom, which are specifically intended to solve humanitarian problems directly arising from international or non international armed conflicts and which, for humanitarian reasons, limit the right of parties to a conflict to use the methods and means of warfare of their choice or protect persons and property that are, or may be, affected by conflict.