rigth to life in armed conflict human rights

As the NAFTA Arbitral Tribunal has most pertinently emphasized in the Loewen case, normative conflict can arise in situations where, for instance, express stipulations ‘are at variance with the continued operation of the relevant rules of international law’. 3 Thus, a related problem is that of normative conflict between the rules that relate to the same subject-matter, yet require different outcomes in relation to it, for instance by virtue of one of them being lex specialis. 2 Fragmentation can take place through the conflicting interpretation of general law, the emergence of special law diverging from the general law, or the existence of two different bodies of special law.

The essence of fragmentation relates to ‘the splitting up of the law into highly specialized “boxes” that claim relative autonomy from each other’. While there are numerous instances where the norms of humanitarian law set out the position required under human rights law and vice versa, this contribution focuses only on areas revealing the claim that the level of protection in one field can be lower than in the other. In practical terms, the crucial issue is whether the protection provided to individuals under humanitarian law is less than that under human rights law.

1 The principal question arising is whether the two fields of law develop in a way of fragmenting the legal framework that protects the individual whether their requirements conflict with each other or whether they develop towards forming the common legal ground for the protection of individuals in the context of an armed conflict. The interaction between international human rights law and international humanitarian law raises multiple problems.

Rigth to life in armed conflict human rights