1 1,2 Customary International HumanitarianLaw(Jean-Marie Henckaerts & Louise Doswald-Beck eds.(2005).

2 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, 1125 U.N.T.S. 3.

3 19 ILM 1823 (1980).

4 Convention on Indiscriminate Weapons, Protocol (III) on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons, 1980, 19 ILM 1534 (1980).

5 Convention on Indiscriminate Weapons, Protocol (IV) on Blinding Laser Weapons, 1995, 35 ILM 1218 (1996).

6 During the question-and-answer session, Louise Doswald-Beck, author of the weapons section of the Customary Law Study, indicated that this information was not included as it was not available to the ICRC. However, the Soviet/Warsaw Pact volte face occurred in the Incendiaries Working Group plenary session, attended by the ICRC observer, and received major attention for the next two days. Even had this not been the case, this suggests a failure of adequate consultation and/or coordination by the ICRC of the draft text of its customary law study. As the ICRC solicited an article from me on the incendiaries protocol, which appeared in its official publication (The Protocol on Incendiary Weapons, International Review of th e Red Cross, Nov.-Dee. 1990), neither ignorance of history nor failure of consultation are excuses for failure of research or consultation.

7 Returning to the point made by Ms.Doswald-Beck, Google Scholarduring the panel's discussion session, contrary to her assertion of ICRC lack of access, this nuance was fully discussed in my article Travaux Preparatoires and Legal Analysis of Blinding Laser Weapons Protocol, The Army Lawyer, June 1997, which is cited in the ICRC's Customary Law Study (supra note 2). Had there been any question with respect to this issue, it could have been resolved through consultation and coordination prior to publication.

8 1 Customary International Humanitarian Law, supranote2 at 243.