Article

Customary international humanitarian law study : fundamental guarantees

Cyril Laucci

• Slovenian law review, Vol. 6, no. 1-2, December 2009, p. 191-204

English, English

The paper presents the nineteen rules contained in chapter 32 on fundamental guarantees of the ICRC Customary IHL Study. These rules all derive from the first basic principle that civilians and persons hors de combat must be treated humanely, and contain the fundamental guarantees that must be respected to that effect. The author claims that most of these guarantees exemplify the cumulative applicability of both international humanitarian law and human rights law, thus renouncing as fallacious the assumptions of the classical view which found them to be mutually exclusive (such as that international humanitarian law only applies in armed conflicts and not during internal disturbances, while human rights law applies in time of peace). Furthermore, substantiated by an analysis of the individual rules, the author finds that these guarantees find their roots in both sets of norms in situations of armed conflicts.