- Facilitation of strategic success. Military and political leaders recognized
that enemy civilians who believed that they would be well treated were more
likely to surrender and or cooperate with occupying forces. Therefore,
sparing the vanquished from atrocities facilitated ultimate victory. - Desire to minimize the devastation and suffering caused by war.
Throughout history, religious leaders, scholars, and military professionals
advocated limitations on the devastation caused by conflict. This rationale
emerged as a major trend in the development of the law of war in the mid
nineteenth century and continues to be a major focus of advocates of
"humanitarian law."
B. Two Approaches To The Protection of Civilians. Two methodologies for the
protection of civilian noncombatants developed under customary international
law.
- The Targeting Method. Noncombatants who are not in the hands of an
enemy force (the force employing the weapon systems restricted by the
targeting method) benefit from restricting the types of lethality that may
lawfully be directed at combatants. This method is governed primarily by
the rules of military necessity, prevention of superfluous
suffering/devastation, and proportionality (especially as these rules have been
codified within the Hague Regulations and Geneva Protocol I). - The Protect and Respect Method. Establish certain imperative protections
for noncombatants that are in your hands (physically under the control or
authority of a party to the conflict). - Consolidated Development. Protocol I and IS to the 1949 Geneva
Conventions represent the convergence of both the Hague and Geneva
traditions for protecting victims of warfare. These Protocols include both
targeting and protect and respect based protections.
C. The Recent Historical "Cause and Effect" Process.
Post Thirty Years War -Pre World War 11: Civilians were generally not targets
during warfare. War waged in areas removed from civilian populations. There
was no perceived need to devote legal protections to civilians exclusively.
Civilians derive sufficient "gratuitous benefit" from law making destruction of
enemy armed forces the sole legal object of conflict.