CIAO DATE: 11/2009
October 2009
Human Rights & Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Counterinsurgency is the dominant aspect of US operations in Afghanistan, and since ISAF—the NATO-led security and assistance force—has assumed growing security responsibility throughout the country, it is also a mission for the Europeans. The frame in which military operations are conducted is irregular warfare, a form of conflict which differs from conventional operations in two main aspects. First, it is warfare among and within the people. Second, it is warfare in which insurgents avoid a direct military confrontation, using instead unconventional methods and terrorist tactics. Insurgents are difficult to distinguish from non combatants until combat erupts. This circumstance entails a need of caution in the conduct of operations for which international humanitarian law (IHL), or the law of armed conflict, seems not tailored. Despite the considerable increase in the number of subjects covered by the law of armed conflict those rules—when compared to the complexity of modern warfare—are insufficient.
Resource link: A Human Rights-Oriented Approach to Military Operations [PDF] - 176K