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The conference of government experts on the use of certain conventional weapons, second session, Lugano, 28 January – 26 February 1976 *

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Frits Kalshoven
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Extract

As recorded in the previous volume of this Yearbook, most of those participating in the Conference of Government Experts on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons held at Lucerne from 24 September - 18 October 1974 came to the realization that a second experts' conference would be necessary to examine further the issues which had proved so controversial at Lucerne. At the same time, as a mere repetition of the Lucerne exercise would serve no useful purpose, it was decided that a second conference would concentrate on the weapons which might have been, or might become, the subject of proposals to ban or restrict their use, and its task would be to study the possibility, contents and form of such proposed bans or restrictions. A conference with these terms of reference was duly convened by the International Committee of the Red Cross (or I.C.R.C.), and met from 28 January - 26 February 1976 at Lugano, Switzerland; so as to avoid having to start all over again with the drawing up of Rules of Procedure and similar organizational matters, it was designated as the “second session” of the Conference of Government Experts on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons.

Type
Articles
Information
Netherlands Yearbook of International Law , Volume 7 , December 1976 , pp. 197 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1976

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References

1. 6 N.Y.I.L. (1975) p. 77, at p. 101; Rule 1, para. 2 of the Rules of Procedure of the second session, Report (Geneva, 1976) p. 227.

2. Rules 5 and 11 of the Rules of Procedure, Report pp. 229, 230. Another difference was that different officers were elected for the general working group from those for the plenary meetings. As for the function of Rapporteur, the Conference, after some quite disagreeable bickering, took the rather unfortunate decision to designate the present author as Rapporteur both of the plenary and of the general working group. It may be put on record here that the report of the working group was in fact written by Mr. Julian Perry Robinson, who was present at the Conference as an observer for the World Health Organization.

3. One particularly irritating consequence of this set-up will be immediately apparent to anyone who attempts to orient himself in the Report of the Lugano Conference: he will find himself entangled in a complicated, cumbersome affair which makes it very difficult indeed to find what one is looking for.

4. Thus an Indonesian expert reported on tests with projectiles of 7.62 and 5.56 mm fired into blocks of soap from distances varying from 50 to 1000 m; Report p. 16.

5. See my article in 6 N.Y.I.L. (1975) at p. 93.

6. Report of the Working Sub-Group on General and Legal Questions, Report, p. 140 et seq.

7. Op. cit. n. 5, at p. 99 (note 93).

8. Letter to the I.C.R.C. dated 15 May 1975; Report, p. 206. Mexico never accepted the exemption.

9. Doc. COLU/207 submitted by the experts of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Philippines and the U.S.A.; Report, p. 181.

10. Doc. COLU/205; Report, p. 176 et seq.

11. Doc. CDDH/IV/206; Australia and Denmark became co-sponsors of the proposal. Besides definitions of “incendiary munition” and “flame munition” (as a species of the former), the proposal contained three rules: (1) prohibition to attack cities et cetera with incendiary munitions, (2) permission to attack specific military objectives within such areas with incendiary munitions, provided that “all feasible precautions are taken to limit the incendiary effects to the specific military objectives and to avoid incidental loss of civilian life or injury to civilians”, and (3) prohibition to attack specific military objectives within such areas from the air with “napalm or other flame munitions unless that objective is located within an area in which combat between ground forces is taking place or is imminent”. The last-mentioned rule was an interesting attempt to “do something” about napalm. For Sweden, it was indeed “something”, but not nearly enough; this delegation subsequently submitted a working paper of its own (CDDH/IV/208) which was confined to flame munitions: these should be prohibited for use in all circumstances (that is, also on the battlefield) and they were defined in terms of their effects (“primarily designed to cause burn injury to persons or to set fire to objects through the action of flame produced by a chemical reaction of a substance dispersed over the target”), whereas the Netherlands proposal defined flame munitions by their composition (“based on a gelled hydrocarbon”).

12. COLU/203.

13. The proposals were also discussed in a working sub-group of military experts on mines and booby-traps, of which Mr. R.J. Akkerman (Netherlands) acted as rapporteur; Report, p. 146 et seq.

14. CDDH/IV/213; Denmark joined as co-sponsor.

15. Report, p. 154 et seq.; here, too, a member of the Netherlands delegation, Mr. E.B. van Erp Taalman Kip, acted as rapporteur.

16. CDDH/IV/214.

17. Report, p. 199: CDDH/IV/201.

18. Bullets with such extreme velocities do not at present exist, nor are they anticipated; but the Swedes fear that they would cause excessive injury.

19. Report, p. 14: para. 36 of the report on the plenary meetings.

20. COLU/202, submitted by Sweden.

21. COLU/209, a Swiss proposal.

22. COLU/212.

23. Report, p. 18: para. 50 of the report on the plenary meetings.

24. Ibid., and COLU/216.

25. Report, pp. 122–123: paras. 77–82 of the report of the general working group.

26. Report, p. 133.

27. See, concerning this difference between pure reciprocity and the right of reprisal, my Belligerent Reprisals (Leiden, 1971), pp. 339–344, 347.Google Scholar

28. For this whole discussion, see: Report, p. 140 et seq.: report of the working sub-group on general and legal questions, in particular paras. 8–9.

29. Article 33, para. 2, of Draft Protocol I (relating to international armed conflicts) and Article 20, para. 2, of Draft Protocol II (relating to non-international armed conflicts), as adopted by Committee III of the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts.

30. Report, p. 146: annex to the report of the working sub-group on general and legal questions.