INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONTEMPORARY ARMED CONFLICTS RECOMMITTING TO PROTECTION IN ARMED CONFLICT ON THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS REPORT INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONTEMPORARY ARMED CONFLICTS RECOMMITTING TO PROTECTION IN ARMED CONFLICT ON THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..........................................................................................................................5 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER 2: CONTEMPORARY AND FUTURE CHALLENGES IN THE CONDUCT OF HOSTILITIES ........15 1. Urbanization of armed conflicts ........................................................................................................ 16 A) The protection of civilians against the effects of hostilities during urban warfare ..................................16 B) The use of explosive weapons in populated areas ....................................................................................................19 C) The protection of the civilian population during sieges .......................................................................................22 2. New technologies of warfare .............................................................................................................26 A) Cyber operations, their potential human cost, and the protection afforded by IHL .................................26 B) Autonomous weapon systems .........................................................................................................................................29 C) Artificial intelligence and machine learning .............................................................................................................31 D) Humanitarian consequences and constraints under IHL related to the potential use of weapons in outer space ......................................................................................... 32 E) Challenges posed by certain new technologies of warfare to legal reviews of new weapons ...............34 CHAPTER 3: NEEDS OF THE CIVILIAN POPULATION IN INCREASINGLY LONG CONFLICTS: SELECTED ISSUES ...............................................................................................................................37 1. Internally displaced persons .............................................................................................................38 2. The protection of persons with disabilities ....................................................................................... 41 3. Access to education .......................................................................................................................... 44 CHAPTER 4: IHL AND NON-STATE ARMED GROUPS ...........................................................................49 1. The applicability of IHL to conflicts involving multiple non-State armed groups .............................50 2. The legal regime protecting persons living in territory under the control of non-State armed groups ...................................................................................52 3. Detention by non-State armed groups ...............................................................................................54 CHAPTER 5: TERRORISM, COUNTERTERRORISM MEASURES, AND IHL ............................................57 1. The applicability of IHL to States fighting “terrorism” and non-State armed groups designated as “terrorists” ...................................................................58 2. Counterterrorism measures and principled humanitarian action .....................................................59 3. Status and protection of foreign fighters and their families .............................................................. 61 CHAPTER 6: CLIMATE, ARMED CONFLICT, AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT ................................65 CHAPTER 7: ENHANCING RESPECT FOR IHL ......................................................................................71 1. Investigations in armed conflict .......................................................................................................72 2. Roots of restraint in war ...................................................................................................................74 3. “Support relationships” in armed conflict .......................................................................................75 4. IHL in action: Respect for the law on the battlefield .........................................................................76 CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................79 INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONTEMPORARY ARMED CONFLICTS 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This is the fifth report on international humanitarian law (IHL) and the challenges of contemporary armed conflicts prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (International Conference). Similar reports were submitted to the Inter‑ national Conferences held in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. The aim of all these reports is to provide an overview of some of the challenges posed by contemporary armed conflicts for IHL; generate broader reflection on those challenges; and outline current or prospective ICRC action, positions, and areas of interest. Like its predecessors, this report addresses only some of the contemporary challenges to IHL. It outlines a number of issues that are the focus of increased interest among States and other actors, as well as the ICRC: the urbanization of armed conflicts; new technologies of warfare; the needs of civilians in conflicts that are, increasingly, protracted; non‑State armed groups; terrorism and counterterrorism; climate change, the environment, and armed conflict; and enhancing respect for IHL. These issues include matters not addressed in previous reports, such as sieges, the use of artificial intelligence in warfare, and the protection of persons with disabilities. The report also provides an update on some of the issues that were addressed in previous reports and that remain high on the international agenda, such as the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, certain new technologies of warfare, and foreign fighters and their families. *** The introduction to the report provides a brief overview of current armed conflicts and their humanitarian consequences, and of the operational realities in which challenges to IHL arise. Chapter II addresses contemporary and future challenges in the conduct of hostilities, focusing on selected issues related to urban warfare (section 1) and new technologies of warfare (section 2). Increasingly, fighting takes place in cities, and this creates a number of specific challenges for parties to the conflict. The report addresses three of them. The first and fundamental one is ensuring that elementary IHL principles on the conduct of hostilities – distinction, proportionality, precautions – are applied in a way that protects civilians in urban battlefields, which are characterized by the intermingling of civilians and combatants, the proximity of civilian objects and military objectives, and a complex web of interconnected urban infrastructure. In particular, the use of explosive weapons with wide‑area impact in densely populated areas continues to raise legal questions and significant humanitarian concern. Chapter II also discusses the need to ensure that sieges and encirclement tactics do not violate the rules on the protection of the civilian population – an issue that has drawn significant attention in recent conflicts. The second section of Chapter II is devoted to new technologies of warfare – some of which have been employed in recent conflicts. It may also be expected that their use will only increase in future – with possible positive and negative consequences for the protection of civilians. Among other things, this chapter draws attention to the potential human cost of cyber warfare; outlines legal and ethical issues concerning the loss of human control over the use of force as a result of autonomy in the “critical functions” of weapon systems; and emphasizes key issues that States have to consider when implementing their responsibility to ensure that new means and methods of warfare are capable of being used in compliance with IHL. 6 INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONTEMPORARY ARMED CONFLICTS The protracted nature of many of today’s armed conflicts has an impact on the needs and vulnerabilities of civilian populations. Chapter III presents a selection of issues under IHL that relate to the wider humanitar‑ ian debate on the protection of civilian populations. In particular, the chapter discusses how respect for IHL can contribute to finding durable solutions for the plight of the unprecedentedly high numbers of internally displaced persons. It also recalls how IHL can address the specific capacities, experiences and perspectives of persons with disabilities during armed conflict, thereby complementing the pertinent provisions of inter‑ national human rights law. The chapter also describes how IHL protects the education of children when it is a contested stake in a conflict, when the civilian value of schools is underestimated in the