Part III: The Collapse of the International Legal Order
The birth of the United Nations, combined with the four Geneva Conventions on human and humanitarian rights, represented the acme of human achievement in regulating the conduct of war. Emerging from the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, this legal framework embodied the determination that such atrocities must never recur. The Geneva Conventions, in particular, established fundamental principles that were to govern all armed conflict: distinction between combatants and civilians, proportionality in the use of force, prohibition of collective punishment, protection of medical personnel and facilities, and humanitarian access to affected populations.
In the warfare we witness today, none of these principles can be detected in either planning or conduct.
The Principle of Distinction
The cornerstone of international humanitarian law is the requirement that parties to a conflict distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians, and between military objectives and civilian objects. Attacks may only be directed at military objectives; civilians and civilian objects must be spared.
In contemporary practice, this principle has been inverted. Residential buildings are targeted with the justification that they contain a single combatant or command post. Hospitals are bombed on the suspicion that they shield military activity. Schools and universities are destroyed because they might have been used for hostile purposes. The presence of a single military objective transforms entire civilian neighborhoods into legitimate targets. The distinction between combatant and civilian collapses entirely when military-aged males are assumed to be combatants and when entire families and school children are killed in their homes and schools.
The scale of civilian death is not incidental to this warfare; it is its predictable and accepted consequence. When tens of thousands of civilians are killed, when the percentage of women and children among the dead exceeds any plausible combatant ratio, when entire extended families are wiped from the civil registry—these are not accidents or mistakes. They are the logical outcome of a targeting philosophy that has abandoned the principle of distinction.
The Principle of Proportionality
Even when military objectives are legitimate, international law requires that the anticipated military advantage be weighed against the expected civilian harm. Attacks are prohibited if the civilian harm is excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
In contemporary warfare, this calculus has been abandoned. The military advantage sought is often trivial—the killing of a single low-level combatant, the destruction of a tunnel entrance, the temporary disruption of rocket fire—while the civilian harm is catastrophic. The destruction of entire apartment buildings, the killing of dozens of civilians, the demolition of infrastructure essential for human life—all are justified by minimal and temporary military gains. The proportionality calculation has been reversed: civilian harm is ignored, military advantage is inflated, and the legal requirement becomes a bureaucratic formality rather than a substantive constraint.
The Prohibition of Collective Punishment
The Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibit collective punishment—the punishment of an entire population for the actions of a few. This prohibition reflects the fundamental principle of individual responsibility that underlies modern legal systems.
Contemporary warfare is collective punishment elevated to strategy. Entire populations are subjected to siege, deprivation, and bombardment because of the actions of armed groups within them. The collective punishment is not incidental but central: the declared objective is to make life so unbearable that the population will turn against the armed groups, or to “deter” future attacks through the infliction of suffering on the entire community. This approach not only violates international law but is strategically counterproductive, as collective punishment creates collective resistance.
The Protection of Medical Facilities and Personnel
International law provides special protection to medical facilities and personnel, recognizing that even war must accommodate the demands of humanity. Hospitals, ambulances, medical workers, and patients are entitled to protection so long as they are not used for hostile acts.
Dans les conflits modernes, les infrastructures médicales sont systématiquement prises pour cibles. Les hôpitaux sont bombardés, pilonnés et pillés. Le personnel médical est tué, détenu et empêché de soigner les blessés. Des ambulances sont attaquées. Des patients meurent dans leur lit ou sont évacués sous le feu ennemi. La destruction du système de santé n’est pas un accident de la guerre ; elle semble en être l’un des objectifs. Une population privée de soins médicaux est une population incapable de se rétablir, de résister et de survivre.
L’accès humanitaire et le siège
Le droit international humanitaire exige que les parties à un conflit permettent et facilitent l’acheminement rapide et sans entrave de l’aide humanitaire aux civils dans le besoin. La famine des civils comme méthode de guerre est interdite.
La guerre contemporaine a instrumentalisé l’accès humanitaire. Les sièges, longtemps reconnus comme une méthode brutale pour contraindre les populations à la reddition, ont été réactivés et intensifiés. Des populations entières sont privées de nourriture, d’eau, de carburant, d’électricité et de fournitures médicales. L’acheminement de l’aide humanitaire est bloqué, retardé ou limité à des niveaux bien inférieurs aux besoins de survie. Lorsqu’elle est autorisée, cette aide est souvent insuffisante, intermittente ou entravée par des opérations militaires en cours. La malnutrition, les maladies et les décès qui en résultent ne sont pas des conséquences accidentelles, mais les résultats prévisibles d’une politique délibérée
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Suivez la partie IV