Serbia and Montenegro v the United Kingdom - Essay Example

civilian casualties were inevitable but were kept at a minimum. The Serbia and Montenegro military launched attacks from these bases and it prompted a return of fire. Unfortunately, casualties were incurred during combat. The fulfillment of military objectives is also provided for by Article 48 of the 1949 Geneva Convention. “The parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian populations and combatants and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.”

Another relevant and core principle of the law of armed conflict is the principle of proportionality, codified in Article 51(5)(b), 1977 additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Convention. Based on this law, collateral damage may be incurred in the process of realizing an anticipated military advantage. The United Kingdom engaged in combat in a bid to establish a military advantage and collateral damage was unavoidable. In this respect, the United Kingdom engaged in combat for the sole purpose of realizing a concrete military advantage.

“Article 57 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions states that, in an international conflict, attacks are prohibited if the collateral damage expected from any attack is not proportional to the military advantage anticipated.” It is the position of the United Kingdom to appreciate that civilian casualties and collateral damage in Serbia and Montenegro were proportional to the anticipated military advantage. A ruling against the United Kingdom would set a precedence that would allow an increased presence of civilians in military objectives. Such an action rewards and even encourage the use of human shields during the war.
Question 2
The use of cluster bombs did not contravene the obligation of the United Kingdom not to use prohibited weapons. The United Kingdom maintains that cluster bombs have the same accuracy as other non-precision weapons used in war. There are a wide variety of non-precision guided weapons that are used during the war. Currently, there is no ban on the use of non-precision and near precision weapons during war. “According to the preamble to the 1980 United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the States parties have based themselves “on the principle that prohibits the employment in armed conflicts of weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.” The target site for the cluster bombs was a large area i.e. the airport.

The United Kingdom avoided creating unnecessary suffering by limiting the cluster bombs to the target site. The cluster bombs were launched at the airport in order to create a military advantage by sabotaging transport. However, the United Kingdom engaged in a high-altitude bombing in order to protect the pilots, and the military could not have foreseen the deflection of these bombs to other locations that harbored civilians. This presented an unforeseen target error. A more precise target launch would have been achieved at a low altitude, but this would have made the pilots more vulnerable to airborne attacks. Read More