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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2010
International humanitarian law and human rights law share a common goal, namely to protect the individual and to ensure respect for human dignity. Yet these two branches of international public law each have their own characteristics and origins and have evolved in different ways.
Nevertheless, the troubled aftermath of the Second World War, the unchecked rise of violence and poverty in recent decades and the resulting need for improved protection of the ever-growing number of victims of violations of fundamental human rights have all contributed not only to the evolution of the two branches of law but also to their convergence, like “two poor crutches on which disarmed victims can lean simultaneously”, to quote an expressive image by Karel Vasak. This expert went so far as to estimate in 1984 that “the convergence of the two branches has led to an overlapping both on paper and, increasingly, in practice as well”.
1 Karel Vasak, “Pour une troisième génération des droits de l'homme” (For a third generation of human rights) in Studies and essays on international humanitarian law and Red Cross principles, in honour of Jean Pictet, Christophe Swinarski, ed., ICRC; Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Geneva, The Hague, 1984, pp. 837–850, ad. 837.
2 Ibid.
3 These are the “hard core” of human rights: the right to life, the prohibition of torture and inhuman degrading punishment and treatment, the prohibition of slavery and servitude, and the principles of legality and non-retroactivity.
4 See Doswald-Beck, Louise and Vité, Sylvain, “International humanitarian law and human rights law”, pp. 94–119 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. After analysing the philosophical basis and the nature of humanitarian law and human rights law and describing their specific characteristics, the authors examine their similarities and mutual influence, citing both textual and practical examples.
5 See Weissbrodt, David and Hicks, Peggy L., “Implementation of human rights and humanitarian law in situations of armed conflict”, pp. 120–138 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In particular, these two authors discuss convergence in the application of human rights law and humanitarian law in conflict situations. They also give considerable space to a comparison of the role of the ICRC and that of the NGOs.
6 This is the personal view of Peter Nobel, Secretary General of the Swedish Red Cross, as set forth in his article “The role of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in promoting respect for human rights”, pp. 139–149 Google Scholar. The author is also Chairman of the Sub-Commission (Human Rights) of the Commission on the Red Cross, Red Crescent and Peace.
