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Do soldiers' lives matter? A view from proportionality

Ziegler, R. (R.) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6173-441X and Otzari, S. (2012) Do soldiers' lives matter? A view from proportionality. Israel Law Review, 45 (1). pp. 53-69. ISSN 2047-9336

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To link to this item DOI: 10.1017/S0021223711000045

Abstract/Summary

A military operation is about to take place during an ongoing international armed conflict; it can be carried out either by aerial attack, which is expected to cause the deaths of enemy civilians, or by using ground troops, which is expected to cause the deaths of fewer enemy civilians but is expected to result in more deaths of compatriot soldiers. Does the principle of proportionality in international humanitarian law impose a duty on an attacker to expose its soldiers to life-threatening risks in order to minimise or avert risks of incidental damage to enemy civilians? If such a duty exists, is it absolute or qualified? And if it is a qualified duty, what considerations may be taken into account in determining its character and scope? This article presents an analytic framework under the current international humanitarian law (IHL) legal structure, following a proportionality analysis. The proposed framework identifies five main positions for addressing the above queries. The five positions are arranged along two ‘axes’: a value ‘axis’, which identifies the value assigned to the lives of compatriot soldiers in relation to lives of enemy civilians; and a justification ‘axis’, which outlines the justificatory bases for assigning certain values to lives of compatriot soldiers and enemy civilians: intrinsic, instrumental or a combination thereof. The article critically assesses these positions, and favours a position which attributes a value to compatriot soldiers’ lives, premised on a justificatory basis which marries intrinsic considerations with circumscribed instrumental considerations, avoiding the indeterminacy and normative questionability entailed by more expansive instrumental considerations.

Item Type:Article
Refereed:Yes
Divisions:Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Law
ID Code:29555
Publisher:Cambridge University Press; Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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