Despite progress in recent years, including UN Security Council Resolution 2475 of 2019, there remains a significant gap in our awareness of the disability dynamics of armed conflict and the barriers that persons with disabilities experience in accessing the protections of international humanitarian law (IHL). This brief article will consider the protective purpose of IHL and the diversity of civilian populations, and, focussing on the principle of proportionality as an example, demonstrate how IHL must be interpreted, implemented and monitored in a manner that is inclusive and reflects the reality that civilian populations are diverse.

Discrimination and sexual and gender-based violence committed against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) detainees remains one of the most pressing contemporary humanitarian challenges. This article focuses on the interpretation of the phrase “or any other similar criteria” as contained in Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions, upon which adverse distinction is prohibited, in order to qualify sexual orientation and gender identity as prohibited grounds of adverse distinction. The interpretation of “or any other similar criteria” will be embarked upon by employing the general rule of treaty interpretation provided for in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, so as to qualify sexual orientation and gender identity as “any other similar criteria” and ultimately to realize the protection of LGBTQI detainees against discrimination and sexual and gender-based violence during non-international armed conflict.