Declaration of war in international law and international humanitarian law

Document Type : Refereed academic research and articles

Author

Nasser Military Academy for Graduate Studies, Egypt

Abstract

War is considered a phenomenon of organized collective violence as it affects either the relations between two or more societies or affects the power relations within society. War is subject to the law of armed conflict, which is called “international humanitarian law”, as war in the past centuries was until the issuance of an organized charter. The United Nations, as we will explain later, is a legitimate means that states resort to in order to settle their international disputes that other peaceful means have failed to settle. Despite that, the international instruments regulating war have not neglected to address the international obligations that bind states before launching war on other states that are hostile to them. It is important to study two prominent legal issues that have been raised by armed conflicts: the first: the nature of the declaration of war in international law and international humanitarian law, and the second: the legitimacy of resorting to armed force by states within the international sphere. The study raises a very important legal problem, which is the relationship between the legitimacy of countries resorting to war to settle their international disputes without prior declaration of war.

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