Road to Nowhere? The Future of a Declaration on Fundamental Standards of Humanity

Emily J. Crawford, University of Sydney

Abstract

In the years following the adoption of the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions in 1977, debate began to emerge regarding the extant lacunae in the international rules relating to situations of conflict. It was felt, by some academic writers and practitioners, that there remained a gap in international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law with regards to what was being termed ‘grey-zone conflicts’ – armed conflicts that did not meet the minimum requirements of either Protocol II or Common Article 3, yet were more than just one-off incidents, such as a riot. Therefore, it was proposed that the international community should look to drafting and adopting a declaration outlining the minimum humanitarian standards applicable in all situations of violence and conflict. By 1990, this debate had crystallised around the Turku Declaration on Minimum Humanitarian Standards. Progression on the declaration quickly stalled once discussion was moved to the United Nations. Since 1995, there have been nine reports by the Secretary-General on the question of fundamental standards of humanity, prepared pursuant to resolutions and declarations of the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and the UN Commission on Human Rights. The question of the scope and content of minimum humanitarian standards – or fundamental standards of humanity as they are now termed – has become clearer with the growth of international criminal case law and works such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) study into customary international humanitarian law. Yet the adoption of a document that outlines these fundamental standards is no more imminent than when the issue first moved to the United Nations. It is thus the intent of this article to examine why and how this apparently vital piece of international law policy has stalled.