CYIL 2012

VERONIKA BÍLKOVÁ

CYIL 3 ȍ2012Ȏ

1. Introduction This paper inquires into the relationship between the concept of human security and international humanitarian law (also known as the law of armed conflict or jus in bello, hereafter IHL). It argues that since its creation in the mid-19 th century, IHL has undergone a process of gradual humanization. 1 This process, consisting of three main waves, has rendered IHL more human-centred by strengthening the legal position of individuals, reducing the role of reciprocity, and making the course of both international and non-international armed conflicts the matter of concern for the international community as a whole. Yet, despite this evolution, IHL is not fully compatible with the concept of human security which has recently emerged at the international scene. This paper argues that while further humanization is still possible in some areas of IHL, the system cannot do away with the need to balance the principles of humanity and military necessity. Doing so would render it either unnecessary or, in a worse and more probable case, utterly unrealistic, in the result of which waging wars would become rather less than more humane. After introducing the concept of human security and giving an overview of the three waves of humanization of IHL in section 2, the paper goes on in section 3 to analyse the relation between IHL and human security, seeking to illustrate the potential as well as the limits of the influence that the latter may exercise over the former. 2. Human Security and Humanization of International Humanitarian Law 2.1 Concept of Human Security The concept of human security emerged in the post-1990 setting. 2 The term was coined by the UN Development Program (hereafter UNDP), which first used it in its 1993 Human Development Report. The report called for the creation of a new people-centred world order and claimed that human security, loosely defined as security “stressing the security of people, not only of nations”, 3 was to become one of the five pillars of this order. The concept received a more detailed treatment in the subsequent 1994 UNDP Human Development Report. Here, it was defined as encompassing “safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression and /.../ protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life-whether 2 See A. Amouyel, What is Human Security?, 1 Human Security Journal (2006), 10-23; and What is ‘Human Security’? Comments by 21 Authors, 35 Security Dialogue 4 (2004), 347-87. See E. Newman, O. P. Richmond, The United Nations and Human Security, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001; R. G. McRae, D. Hubert, Human security and the new diplomacy: protecting people, promoting peace, MCQuill Queen’s Press, 2001; M. Kaldor, Human Security, Polity, 2007; S. Tadjbakhsh, A. M. Chenoy, Human Security: Concepts and Implications, Taylor & Francis, 2007; B. von Tigerstrom, Human Security and International Law, Prospects and Problems, Hart Publishing, Oxford and Portland, 2007. 3 UNDP, Human Development Report 1993, Overview, New York, 1993, p. 2. 1 See T. Meron, Humanization of International Humanitarian Law, 94 AJIL, (2000) 239-278, and T. Meron, Humanization of International Law, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2006.

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