Rudiments of International Humanitarian Law

By Henrietta Newton Martin

The book 'Rudiments of Humanitarian Law', is an easy to read edition. The basics enumerated in the book can be easily assimilated and digested by students of International Humanitarian Law or even general readers of the theme providing them a common insight on the subject. Battles and Wars,are characterized by brutal and arbitrary violence. International Humanitarian Law plays an important role in harnessing civilized deliberations at the time of war and compels the conflicting states/nations, to follow a particular code of war upholding the rights of the disputing nations, the civilians, the soldiers, the prisoners of war, etc; thereby it controls the reigns of warring factions. The world has been a witness to number of wars and battles, confrontations and conflicts. Such power struggles lead to innumerable problems such as legal, political, socio-economic and humanitarian. Hence a need was felt that governments, organizations and individuals in the field, intervene to strategize a path for comity of nations. Individual initiatives of philanthropists like Henry Dunant who witnessed the pain and agony of 40,000 (forty thousand) soldiers after the battle of Solferino (1859) led to a normative frame work as well as an institutional response culminating in the establishment of the International Committee of Red Cross in 1863 and the adoption of Geneva Conventions in 1940 and additional protocols of 1977. International Humanitarian Law is burgeoning as an important system of justice and has gained momentum in the recent past with its activists across the globe.