POL 4189 Lecture 10: 2015-03-03 - International Humanitarian Law 1.docx

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POL 4189
• Professor: Dominique Arel

Document Summary

If you invoke humanitarianism, you can intervene: genocide convention, adopted in 1948, genocide defined, if the security council determined that there is a genocide in progress then all means will be used, it was never invoked yet, test case was rwanda but the us and sc refused to use the word because it is not a genocide, this is a political claim, territorial integrity. Syria 2013: august 2013, there was evidence that the syrian forces were using chemical weapons in rebel areas that affected civilians, obama created a coalition, chemical weapons were deemed illegal in warfare because of what it does to the civilian population, us almost intervened but didn"t work because there was a compromise broken by russia, rhetoric of security. Geneva conventions, 1949: all parties responsible, does not depend on reciprocity, distinction between civilians/combatants, no deliberate targeting, military objectives and civilian objects, these conventions do not make force illegal.