Deadly metal rain: the legality of flechette weapons in international law

摘要

Recent decades have offered grounds for optimism for those, to quote from the 1868 Declaration of St Petersburg, that seek to foster 'limits at which the necessities of war ought to yield to the requirements of humanity'. The agreement of the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention and the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, for instance, represent major achieve ments in establishing bounds on the conduct of warfare. And yet, in many ways these agreements were born out of the frustrations associated with existing international law; and specifically the controls on the means and methods of warfare set out in international humanitarian law (IHL). Article 35(1) of the 1977 First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 specifies one basic tenet of IHL in stating: 'In any armed conflict, the right of the Parties to the conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited'. Those limits derive from the obligation central to IHL: that the needs of military necessity must be balanced by concerns for humanity. This balancing is embodied in a number of specific legal rules; such as the rules regarding superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering, environmental protection, distinction, indiscri minate attacks, and feasible precautions.