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Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks in International Law

Bridging the Accountability Gap

Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks in International Law cover

Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks in International Law

Bridging the Accountability Gap

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Description

This book unveils gaps, inconsistencies, and barriers to accountability emerging from the intersections between IHL and ICL in the definition and treatment of indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks as jus in bello violations.

The book identifies and explains the unresolved legal problems surrounding the prevention and control of indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks as international war crimes, and critically unpacks the macroscopic implications of these problems for international adjudications. It goes on to address the challenges posed by these attacks as key causes of civilian victimization in war.

The author demonstrates that the Rome Statute of the ICC, legibus sic stantibus, does not allow to prosecute and punish the most recurring forms of indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, crucially impairing the ability of this institution to pursue the objectives declared by its founding treaty. It concludes by offering two amendment proposals for the Rome Statute to bridge the gaps and overcome the antinomies identified.

Table of Contents

Background: Inequality as Continuity between War and Law.

1. Civilian Victimization in Armed Conflicts, in History and Theory.
Introduction
1.1 International Humanitarian Law as koinè, and its 'dark sides'.
1.2 Civilians in the Interstate Warfare of the Jus Publicum Europaeum.
1.3 Civilian Resistance at the origins of the Civilians/Combatants legal dichotomy.
1.4 Civilians at War, the Partisan, and the Problem of Guerrilla Warfare.
1.5 Civilian Victimization in Contemporary Wars, an Aetiological Enquiry: Why Liberal Democracies Strike Non-combatants?

2. Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks in International Humanitarian Law
2.1. The Fundamental IHL Prescriptions Governing Targeting Decisions, between 'Military Necessity' and 'Humanity'.
2.1.1 Distinction
2.1.2 Proportionality
2.1.3 Precautions.
2.2 The IHL Prohibitions of Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks under Additional Protocol I.
2.3 Interplay of the Targeting Principles: in Search of Systematic Coherence
2.4 Reframing the Distinction-Proportionality Nexus.
2.4.1 Incidentality of the Civilian Harm as Systematic Cornerstone of the Law of Targeting.
2.4.1.1 Incidentality Between Distinction and Proportionality
2.4.1.2 Incidentality and Precautions.
2.4.1.3 A Serious Misconception: 'Balancing' Incidentality with Military Advantage.
2.4.1.4 Multi-component Objects, Pars Pro Toto Determinations of Military Objectives and the 'Synecdoches' Capsizing Incidentality.
2.5 Recentralizing Incidentality of the Civilian Harm as Conditio Sine Qua Non for Proportionality Assessments.
2.6 The Interpretative Auxilium of Mens Rea categories: Incidentality as Threefold Dividing Line Between Distinction and Proportionality.

3. Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks at the Origins of International Criminal Law: From Nuremberg to the ICTY
3.1 Indiscriminate Warfare at the Origins of International Criminal Law.
3.1.1 The Axis' Indiscriminate, “Total War”: War crimes In Nuremberg
3.1.2 Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Einsatzgruppen Case: at the Origins of Double Standards.
3.1.3 Kelsen's Privilegium Odiosum, and Radrbuch's Verleugnungsformel: “Equality, The Core of Justice”
3.2 The ICTY Jurisprudence About Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks as War Crimes.
3.2.1 Overcoming the IACs / NIACs dichotomy.
3.2.2 Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks as Conduct Indicating the Intent of the Crime of Terror.
3.2.3 Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks as Conduct Indicating the Intent of Direct Attacks on Civilians.
3.3 Critical Knots of the ICTY Jurisprudence.
3.3.1 In Search of Objective Parameters Indicating the Indiscriminate Character of Attacks: the Circular Error Probable.
3.3.2 The Gotovina Case 'Scandal': 'End of Indiscriminate Attacks'?
3.3.3. Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks as Reckless Attacks on Civilians, and the Fragility of Case-by-Case Inferences: Back to Victor's Justice?

4. Indiscriminate and Disproportionate attacks in Contemporary War Crimes Law: Born to be Blunt?
4.1 Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks as Turning Points for the ICC at Thirty: Two Alternative Futures for the Court, and the World.
4.2 Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks in the Rome Statute of the ICC: in Search of Lost Enforcement.
4.2.1 The War Crimes Regime of the Rome Statute: Structure of Article 8 and Common Elements.
4.2.2 The Elements of the Crimes of Direct Attacks on Civilians and Civilian Objects
4.2.3 Indiscriminate Attacks as Direct Attacks on Civilians and Civilian Objects? The ICC Jurisprudence.
4.2.4. The Contradictory Elements of the Crime of (Clearly) Disproportionate Attacks: Perpetrators as “Judges in Their Own Cause”?
4.2.5 Old Challenges and New Possibilities: Toward the First ICC Adjudication of Disproportionate Attacks.
4.3 An 'Unduly Expanded' Legal Shield for the Military?
4.3.1 The attack against the Kunduz Medicine Sans Frontiere Hospital: the Problem of Recklessness.
4.3.2 Western Loopholes for Russian Crimes? Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks in the War Against Ukraine.
4.3.3 Gaza 2023-24: a Genocide by Means of Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks?
4.3.3.1 Pre-justifying indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks: entire populations of 'human shields.'
4.3.3.2 Indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks nipped in the bud: 'every house' a 'military objective'.
4.3.3.3 Rewriting IHL proportionality to accommodate the destruction of victim groups as 'collateral'.
4.4 Cassese's Prognosis Confirmed, and the Normalization of Indiscriminate andDisproportionate Attacks

5. Bridging the Accountability Gap: Delivering Justice for Indiscriminate and Disproportionate Attacks.
5.1 Jurisprudential Avenues for Ensuring Accountability, Lex Lata.
5.1.1. Indiscriminate attacks as direct attacks on civilians: the missing piece of the puzzle.
5.1.2. A long-overdue step forward: applicability of the oblique intent mens rea standard.
5.1.3 The war crime of disproportionate attacks: achieving harmonization with IHL proprotionality.
5.1.3.1 Distinguishing disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks under war crimes law: incidentality of the civilian harm.
5.1.3.2 Indirect intent against the 'monarchy' of the military commander.
5.2 The Limits of Interpretative Solutions: Racialized Hierarchies of Civilian Protection and Racialized Hierarchies of War Crimes Law Enforcement.
5.3 An Agenda for the Assembly of the State Parties to the Rome Statute: Lex Ferenda Avenues for Restoring Accountability.
5.3.1 Toward a new war crime offence of indiscriminate attacks
5.3.2 Amending the war crime of disproportionate attacks
5.3.3 Roxin on the future roles of criminal sciences.

Product details

Published Nov 27 2025
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 320
ISBN 9781509976072
Imprint Hart Publishing
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series Studies in International and Comparative Criminal Law
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Luigi Daniele

Luigi Daniele is Senior Lecturer in Law at Notting…

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