Human Rights and War Through Civilian Eyes
Описание книги
International lawyers and ethicists have long judged wars from the perspective of the state and its actions, developing international humanitarian law by asking such questions as «Are the belligerents justified in entering the conflict?» and «How should they conduct themselves during the war's execution?» and «When civilian noncombatants are harmed, who is responsible for their suffering?» Human Rights and War Through Civilian Eyes reimagines the ethics of war from the standpoint of its collateral victims, focusing on the effects of war on individuals—on those who are terrorized, or killed, or whose lives are violently disrupted. Upholding a human rights analysis of war, Thomas W. Smith conveys vividly the depth of human loss and the narrowing of everyday life brought about by armed conflict. Through riveting case studies of the Iraq War and the recent Gaza conflicts, Smith shows how even combatants who profess to follow the laws of war often engage in appalling violence and brutality, cutting short civilian lives, ruining economies, rending social fabrics, and collapsing public infrastructure. A focus on the human dimension of warfare makes clear the limits of international humanitarian law, and underscores how human rights perspectives increase its efficacy. At a moment when liberal states are rethinking the ethics of war as they seek to extricate themselves from unjust or unwise conflicts and taking on the responsibility to intervene to protect vulnerable people from slaughter, Human Rights and War helps us see with bracing clarity the devastating impact of war on innocent people.
Отрывок из книги
Human Rights and War Through Civilian Eyes
Bert B. Lockwood, Jr., Series Editor
.....
Human rights courts have been judging the conduct of war for half a century. Some of the earliest cases decided by the European Commission of Human Rights (today the European Court of Human Rights, ECtHR) dealt with the British counterinsurgency in Cyprus.9 The ECtHR has since adjudicated hundreds of combat and occupation cases, all stemming from “intractable” ethnic, separatist, or insurgent conflicts: Northern Ireland, Cyprus (again), Turkey, Chechnya, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. More than 3,000 petitions arising from the 2008 South Ossetia war have been lodged with the Court, most by ethnic Russians claiming they were abused by Georgian troops. The Court has recently taken up several cases arising from the war in Iraq.
The ECtHR tends to apply human rights law directly to the conduct of war, scarcely mentioning IHL at all. On the right to life, for instance, the Court does not categorically forbid killing in the context of armed conflict; no human rights treaty does that. Rather, no one shall arbitrarily be deprived of the right to life. The Convention holds that killing may result only “from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary” (Art. 2(2)). The Court has applied this single standard to clashes between rioters and police officers, small armed attacks (a PKK ambush in Eastern Turkey), major battles (a thousand irregular fighters arrayed against Russian troops in Chechnya), and a counter-terror operation in which plainclothes SAS forces surveilled and then killed three IRA operatives on city streets in Gibraltar (see Abresch 2005:753).
.....