The Efficacy Of International Humanitarian Law In Armed Conflict Zones: A Legal Analysis Of Human Rights Violations In Palestine And Iraq
- IJLLR Journal
- Jul 29
- 2 min read
Ms. Zainab Iftikhar Khan, Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti Language University
1. ABSTRACT
The international humanitarian law (IHL) and especially the Geneva Convention and the Additional Protocols are designed to protect civilian population and to restrain the excesses of armed conflict. Nevertheless, in long-term war conflict countries like Palestine and Iraq, the extensive and repeated disrespect to the humanitarian principles has posed serious issues to the applicability and efficiency of the IHL systems. The current paper is a comparative legal analysis of the recorded human rights abuses perpetrated in the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands and the intervention of foreign military and insurgencies in Iraq. It examines the extent to which applicable laws have been properly used, honoured and enforced by the state and non-state actors in these countries. This paper also investigates the loopholes in the institutional responsibility, the problems of international institutions like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, and the incapability of applying legal solutions to the populations that are affected. Specific attention is paid to such violations as indiscriminate attacks, civilian displacement, arbitrary detention, and targeted killings. Although many reports and scholarly works have been done on human rights violations in Palestine and Iraq, little has been done to analytically analyses the efficacy of IHL enforcement mechanisms in these conflict areas. These areas are commonly addressed differently in existing literature and the literature does not contain a comparative legal analysis of how and why IHL has failed repeatedly to prevent violations in these situations. The study bridges that gap by critically analysing the legal framework as well as operational failures of the framework and provides recommendations on how to ensure enforcement and accountability under international law.
Keywords: International Humanitarian Law, Human Rights Violation, Armed Conflict, Palestine, Iraq.
