Le présent article se propose de concevoir l’influence de la notion de légitimité au-delà du rôle lui étant communément attribué en droit international humanitaire (DIH), en s’intéressant particulièrement à la relation entre ce dernier et les causes de la guerre, la nature des acteurs impliqués dans les conflits armés ainsi que les motivations des parties. En remettant notamment en question de l’idée d’une stricte séparation entre jus in bello et jus ad bellum, il est soutenu que les tentatives visant à isoler le DIH de ces questions de légitimité sont à la fois vaines, mais également à rebours de l’évolution et des logiques du régime. Il est en revanche défendu que la notion de légitimité en DIH se manifeste à travers deux modes de légitimation — l’un dérivant du statut, l’autre de la cause — à partir desquels la distribution de droits, devoirs, immunités, privilèges ou encore statuts s’opère et se voit justifiée au sein du régime. Ce faisant, de nombreux discours empruntant au second registre, souvent qualifiés d’aberrations du point de vue du DIH, ou dont la nature juridique est contestée, s’avèrent finalement être des arguments juridiques parfaitement valides et ancrés dans l’évolution et les logiques du DIH.

When does an armed conflict end? When does the specific body of law applicable to such a situation — namely, international humanitarian law (IHL) — cease to apply? There is, to date, no clear-cut answer to these questions in treaty law but, rather, a functional approach to the matter. Anchored in wider research related to the temporal scope of applicability of IHL, this contribution demonstrates how the notion of the “general close of military operations,” which appears in Article 6, paragraph 2, of Geneva Convention IV and in Article 3(b) of Additional Protocol I, fulfills the function of determining that any armed conflict has ended.

This article explores the issue of whether individuals who join enemy forces during international armed conflicts are entitled to prisoner of war status upon capture. It presents the long-running debate on the topic through a study of divided scholarly opinions and judicial decisions. An original analysis of the competing theories is conducted on the basis of available state practice, treaty interpretation methodology, and novel critical arguments and proposals. The article seeks to challenge the value attributed to mainstream academic opinions and judicial precedents and open the debate in an area of international humanitarian law that is still under development.

Air strikes are the signature modality of violence used by NATO militaries. When civilian victims of NATO air strikes have turned to courts in NATO countries, they have generally not been successful. What are the legal techniques and legal knowledges deployed in Western courts that render Western aerial violence legal or extralegal? The article analyzes the responses by European courts to two sets of NATO bombings: the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and a September 2009 air strike near Kunduz, Afghanistan. The judgments rely on two forms of “legal technicalities”: the drawing of jurisdictional boundaries that exclude the airspace taken up by the bombers and the ground on which victims stood when they were killed as well as particular visual regimes that facilitate not seeing people on the ground as civilians.

The fact that children are drawn to join the ranks of armed forces or non-state armed groups is a scourge that persists despite concerted efforts to eradicate the practice. No facet of this reality is perhaps more shocking than children’s direct participation in hostility, in that it raises the spectre of combatants directly targeting children. International humanitarian law has been largely silent on this specific aspect of child soldiering, leaving armed forces to improvise their stance when confronted with child soldiers on the battlefield. The Canadian Armed Forces in 2017 adopted what is said to be the first official military doctrine on child soldiers. This article analyzes this doctrine in light of the regulation of the use of force against child soldiers under international humanitarian law. It assesses whether children can ever be full-fledge combatants, when they can be considered civilians directly participating in hostilities, and, if children can be directly targeted, what limits humanitarian law imposes on the means and measures of war employed against them.

How to define and protect the dignity of women in armed conflict? This study attempts to understand the issues and dilemmas of the right to dignity and of questions of diversity in international humanitarian law through the example of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The author proposes an alternative approach to the right to dignity, which in international humanitarian law is primarily associated with women's sexuality. This alternative approach would engage more directly with the debates around social diversity that are occluded in times of war.