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The parallel application of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) to armed conflicts is widely accepted today. Its detailed legal consequences, which will help in understanding its practical effect and potential to enhance the protection of people affected by armed conflicts, remain to be analysed in many areas. This thesis investigates the relationship of state obligations under IHL and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), with a special emphasis on health-related issues in non-international armed conflicts. ICJ jurisprudence suggests that the simultaneous application of IHL and IHRL can be structured with the help of the lex specialis maxim. This thesis argues that the function of the lex specialis maxim is relative and highly situation-dependent. When this is recognised, the maxim - alongside other interpretative methods - promises to aid the flexible parallel application of IHL and economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights to non-international armed conflicts. Despite developments in customary IHL applicable to non-international armed conflicts, the distinction between international and non-international armed conflicts remains relevant in IHL. Likewise, questions remain regarding the threshold of application of some IHL rules. These factors will affect the parallel application of IHL and the ICESCR to non-international armed conflicts. The scope of state obligations under the ICESCR in times of armed conflict has received little attention so far. It is argued that this scope is determined by two Articles: the notion to 'take steps' towards the 'progressive realisation' of ESC rights in Article 2(1) ICESCR, and by Article 4 ICESCR, the Covenant's general limitation clause. It is shown that the minimum core approach can be helpful in interpreting both Articles - minimum core rights should be implemented as a matter of highest priority even in times of armed conflict. It is further argued that no derogations are permitted from the right to health and other ESC rights in times of armed conflict, in particular not from their minimum cores. Building on these findings and focusing on health-related issues, the thesis analyses how a relative and context-sensitive lex specialis maxim can assist in easing substantial tensions between elements of the right to health and IHL relating to the targeting of military objectives, in particular so-called 'dual-use' objects. IHL rules on military targeting are found most likely to be given preference in situations of active combat. Nonetheless, the simultaneous application of the right to health will ensure that adverse long-term public health and other socio-economic consequences of NIACs for civilians are not ignored even when hostilities are ongoing and military-target decisions are made. It is also shown that IHL on the protection and care of the wounded and sick and the right to health complement each other well in mitigating the direct and indirect health consequences of armed conflicts, similarly supported by a context-sensitive use of lex specialis. With certain nuances, these findings apply to the relationship between IHL and ESC rights more generally. The operationalisation of this thesis' findings, and of the legal implications of the parallel application of other ESC rights and IHL, requires further efforts. It is concluded that the development of guidelines that assist practitioners in assessing the flexible relationship between IHL and the ICESCR in a given situation are the most functional option in that regard.

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This thesis examines the practice of humanitarian intervention after the end of the Cold War. In the 90s there was an evident willingness of the world community to promote and protect human rights. The Security Council got involved in matters traditionally regarded internal affairs of states and imposed economic and diplomatic sanctions. What is more, the UN authorised military interventions in cases where massive abuses of human rights have taken place and this is the most significant normative change regarding humanitarian intervention. Thus, from "unilateral" humanitarian intervention we move to "collective" humanitarian intervention. Accordingly, the UN Security Council authorised military action in Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti. Yet, although the Council granted authorisation of the use of force, states had been reluctant to recognise a "unilateral" right of humanitarian intervention. Kosovo is the most challenging case that caused a wide debate regarding the legality of humanitarian intervention. Yet, Kosovo has set a very bad precedent for humanitarian intervention. NATO's violations of humanitarian laws, the bombing against civilian infrastructures, as well as the significant loss of civilian lives proved that the means used were against the proclaimed humanitarian ends. Furthermore, NATO intervention did not bring peace to Kosovo, but the situation remains tense. Thus, it could be argued that the 1999 intervention did not bring a positive and long-term outcome. This is a good case that can illustrate how political and moral omissions can create bad precedents for the emergence of a new norm. Finally, this thesis concludes that after the attacks of 9/11, the prospects of humanitarian intervention in the future are questionable. War against terrorism became the new form of interventionism in the new millennium. Thus, omissions and failures of the past, along with the new challenges of the world community have curtailed the future of humanitarian intervention.

Requests for battlefield euthanasia have, no doubt, occurred on battlefields as long as there have been battlefields. When men have taken up arms against one another, for whatever reason, there have always been those wounded who do not die immediately, but clearly cannot live for long, either because of their wounds or their circumstances. This can generate the desire to hasten their inevitable death, by both the wounded soldier as well as their comrades. These situations have probably occurred throughout history.’ Mercy killings, those lethal actions carried out to relieve suffering, enacted by soldiers upon wounded enemy combatants during and after combat have been evidenced since the earliest recordings of armed conflict. An action which was taken from necessity due to inadequate medical knowledge and resources and also because of the existence of a less humane, but perhaps more practical society, are now considered as a criminal act. However, the act is often carried out from compassion and a feeling of sympathy towards the victim. Meanwhile, public values, the common law and legislation dealing with euthanasia have all developed in the domestic civilian setting. Mercy killings have traditionally been dealt with in a confusing manner by the courts, using ill-fitting doctrines such as diminished responsibility to alleviate the criminal stigma placed upon the defendant. In other situations the application of the law has created uncertainty concerning the demarcation between whether an act constitutes murder or manslaughter. This uncertainty is compounded when the law developed to deal with civilian situations is juxtaposed on a mercy killing carried out by a soldier on another combatant in a battlefield setting. These situations present circumstances beyond the comprehension of civil domestic law. To implement it correctly requires a strained alignment between the pressures facing the soldier in combat and the pressures facing the defendant in peacetime, and there is a high likelihood that by doing so an injustice shall be served to the soldier and the victim. The potential trial processes faced by the soldier who has carried out a battlefield coup de grace are also questionable. To try the soldier in a civilian court is to place the deliberation of his actions into the hands of those who are not his military or cultural peers and who will judge his actions in accordance with a belief system contrary to those the defendant is indoctrinated with through his military training. However, implementing civil criminal law in a court martial alongside military discipline offences for crimes which represent serious operational misconduct, creates conflict between which values should be prioritised. The values of military discipline are in competition with the values of the criminal law. The court martial also carries with it the aura of unfairness due to its inherent bias, and there are concerns over its partiality. However, it also offers potentially the best place for the soldier to face trial because the case is deliberated upon by a Board of military personnel, his peers, who understand the unique culture of the soldier. By comparing the professional soldier with medical professionals, who are also involved with end of life decision making a better sense of the ‘wrongness’ of the action can be found. In the medical context consent can be used to legitimise many actions which may lead to death, and even without it the doctor may act in the patient’s best interests in a manner which avoids liability but results in death. The practice of double effect allows a physician to deliver pain relief even though there is a foreseeable consequence of death. The soldier’s actions exhibit many of the same motives but are never legally justified. The comparison serves to change the perception of the action, from merely legally wrong to morally legitimate. Although difficulties exist in arguing that mercy killing actions should be made legal, the wider consideration of the influences and behaviours can show that such actions can be morally legitimate and that it is not just to punish the soldier too harshly, nor is it just to hold him to account to laws which ill-fit the circumstances, be they domestic criminal laws, international criminal laws or military offence.

This thesis examines the approaches taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to the protection of civilians during internal armed conflict, both at the level of global policy and at the level of implementation in the Colombian context. The thesis explains how the ICRC and UNHCR approach protection, why each has adopted its particular approach, and how and why the effectiveness of each approach is limited. In doing so, it offers a theoretical framework for explaining the approaches taken by international organizations (IOs) to new tasks within their mandates as well as policy implications for the ICRC, UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies. From a theoretical perspective, this research shows that factors internal to the IO carry greater explanatory power than external factors. Most significantly, when an IO expands into a new issue-area, it frames the new task in terms of the existing tasks within its mandate, replicating the specific goals and the means of pursuing those goals. The extent to which the approach is then adapted to the specificities of the new issue-area depends on the ‘bureaucratic personality’ of the IO, and specifically the extent to which decisions are informed by field-level experience. Internal conflicts by definition include armed non-state actors, and the analysis in this thesis emphasises both their significance in determining civilian security and their neglect in existing approaches to protection. While the ICRC seeks to reduce the threat posed by all armed actors (state and non-state) in its work at the field level, it relies heavily on an international legal framework which prioritises states and this partially undermines its attention to non-state actors at the field level. UNHCR retains a state-centric focus at both the field level and the level of global policy. From a policy perspective, therefore, the thesis advocates greater attention to armed non-state actors both at the level of practice and in the development of protection norms.

Les Humanitaires et les Journalistes sont des acteurs de terrain qui se mobilisent à chaque fois que des conflits armés éclatent et que des populations sont, malheureusement, livrées à elles-mêmes. Leurs missions respectives consistent, d'une part, à venir en aide aux victimes touchées soit par la maladie, soit par la famine ou encore par les blessures de guerre ; d'autre part, à informer sur la situation conflictuelle en cours, parfois à en dénoncer les dérives et violations du droit de la guerre. Cependant, le danger n'est jamais très loin de ces deux acteurs de terrain, car ils sont exposés aux effets directs et indirects du conflit armé que peuvent être : les enlèvements voire les rétentions arbitraires, les assassinats, les viols, etc. La particularité de leurs missions et la dangerosité des zones dans lesquelles ils exercent, leur ont fait gagner en importance en droit international. C’est en ce sens qu’un cadre de protection juridique des Humanitaires et des Journalistes a été élaboré par le droit international, notamment via deux de ses branches que sont le droit international humanitaire et le droit pénal international. Il en résulte donc à la fois une protection par les textes contraignants de droit international humanitaire, ainsi qu’une protection par la répression judiciaire des violations desdits textes grâce aux règles de droit pénal international. Un équilibre parfait sur le papier que les juridictions compétentes tardent à appliquer, principalement en raison d’une négligence, voire d’un désintérêt, pour la problématique de la protection juridique des Humanitaires et des Journalistes. / Humanitarian workers and journalists are actors on the ground who mobilize every time armed conflicts erupt and populations are unfortunately left to their own devices. Their respective missions consist, on the one hand, in helping the victims affected either by illness, famine or war wounds ; on the other hand, to inform about the current conflict situation, sometimes to denounce its abuses and violations of the law of war. However, the danger is never very far from these two actors on the ground, because they are exposed to the direct and indirect effects of the armed conflict that can be : kidnappings or even arbitrary retention, assassinations, rape, etc. The particularity of their missions and the dangerousness of the areas in which they exercise, has increased their importance in international law. It is in this sense that a legal protection framework for humanitarians and journalists has been developed by international law, in particular through two branches of : international humanitarian law and international criminal law. The result is both protection by binding texts of international humanitarian law, as well as protection by judicial repression of violations of these texts thanks to the rules of international criminal law. A perfect balance on paper that the competent jurisdictions are slow to apply, mainly because of negligence or even lack of interest in the legal protection of humanitarians and journalists.

La pratique internationale montre que l'aide au développement est souvent attribuée à un État souverain, ce qui n'est pas le cas des territoires palestiniens, en dépit de leur statut d'État observateur non membre de l'ONU. La particularité du statut de la Palestine explique la nature singulière mais aussi ambivalente de l'aide de l'Union européenne, qui peut être relevée à tous les niveaux du processus de gestion. Selon les objectifs premiers, définis pour les territoires de Cisjordanie et de la Bande de Gaza, l'aide publique au développement (APD) contribue à la réalisation des accords de paix afin d'aider les protagonistes à parvenir à une solution viable en conformité avec le droit international et les résolutions de l'ONU. Pour la Communauté internationale, et tout particulièrement l'Union européenne, la «solution de deux États», israélien et palestinien, demeure la seule voie pour mettre un terme au conflit et garantir la sécurité d'Israël. Ces objectifs sont d'autant plus renforcés que depuis l'entrée en vigueur du traité de Lisbonne, la coopération au développement est devenue une compétence partagée entre l'Union et ses États membres, sa mise en œuvre étant arrêtée par le Parlement européen et le Conseil conformément à la procédure législative ordinaire. Or, une analyse fine de la structure de I' APD, objet de la présente recherche, démontre que l'Union européenne, premier donateur des territoires palestiniens de Cisjordanie et de la Bande de Gaza, n'est pas en mesure d'apporter une aide autre que financière ou humanitaire, ce qui l'empêche d'agir sur la construction d'un État palestinien, et de permettre aux territoires de se dégager de leur double dépendance à l'égard de l'aide européenne et de l'économie israélienne, notamment par la promotion de secteurs productifs. Pour autant, ces dernières années, l'Union s'efforce, certes laborieusement, de refonder son aide pour intégrer, de manière effective, le paramètre de l'occupation qui menace irrémédiablement le processus de paix. Hormis la place considérable qu'occupe le conflit proprement dit dans la mise en œuvre de I' APD, un certain nombre de contraintes, notamment d'ordre structurel et institutionnel, explique le défaut d'une stratégie établie en vue d'aider les Palestiniens et leur Autorité nationale à construire, de manière autonome et durable, les fondations de l'État. Aujourd'hui, confrontée à ces obstacles de fond majeurs, et compte tenu du blocage des négociations de paix, l'Union européenne peine à établir une cohérence dans sa stratégie d'aide, à destination des territoires palestiniens, tant au regard des objectifs initiaux de I' APD que du respect de ses principes et valeurs, dont la portée a pourtant été confortée par le traité de Lisbonne. / International practice shows that development aid is often attributed to a sovereign state, which is not the case of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (WBGS), despite their status of nonmember observer state in the UN. The special status of Palestine explains the unprecedented nature of the assistance of the European Union, which falls at all levels of the management process. According to the initial objectives set for the WBGS, official development assistance (ODA) contribute to the achievement of peace agreements in order to help the protagonists to reach a viable solution in accordance with the international law and UN resolutions. For the international community, particularly the European Union, the "two-state solution", Israel and Palestine remains the best way to end the conflict and ensure the security of Israel. These goals are all the more strengthened since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, development cooperation has become a shared competence between the Union and its Member States, its implementation being adopted by the European Parliament and the Council under the ordinary legislative procedure. However, a detailed analysis of the structure of ODA, purpose of this research, shows that the EU -first donor to Palestinian territories- is unable to provide assistance other than humanitarian or financial, which prevents influence the construction of a Palestinian state or to allow territories to be released from their dual dependence of EU aid and the Israeli economy, in particular through the promotion of productive sectors. Yet, in recent years, the Union has been trying, pitilessly, to rebuild its aid in order to effectively integrate the occupation parameter, which is an irreparable threat to the peace process. Apart from the large weight of the conflict itself in the implementation of ODA, a number of constraints, including structural and institutional order, explain the failure of a strategy clearly established to help Palestinians and their national authority to build, in an autonomous and sustainable way, the foundations of the state. Today, faced with these major obstacles, and given the stalemate in the peace negotiations, the European Union is struggling to establish coherence in its aid strategy for the Palestinian territories, both in terms of the initial objectives of ODA and with respect to its constituent principles and values, the scope of which was nevertheless strengthened by the Treaty of Lisbon.

The function of a journalist is not only to inform but also to investigate. Since the public has a right to information, jurists need to protect journalists that report from dangerous war-torn regions in order to keep the world informed. As the primary reliable source and often eyewitness to humanitarian atrocities a journalist has a duty to report such atrocities. There has for several decades now been uncertainty regarding the fact whether journalists should be granted special protection or not. On the one hand it is argued that journalists should be protected in terms of humanitarian law due to their humanitarian function, the service that they render in facilitating the free flow of information to the world and the role that journalists play in society. On the other hand, some argue that the protection of journalists is not the responsibility of the international community but rather their individual national governments or local news organisations. / Jurisprudence / LL.M.