Details
- First book in at least a decade focusing solely on the law governing the use of weapons
- Comprehensive and detailed examination of the rules applicable to every category of weaponry
- Clear and practical presentation of the issues, including the most controversial ones
- Extensive annotations and referencing
This book brings together the law of armed conflict governing the use of weapons into a single volume. It interprets these rules and discusses the factors influencing future developments in weapons law. After relating the historical evolution of weapons law, the book discusses the important customary principles that are the foundation of the subject, and gives a condensed account of the law that exists on the use of weapons. Thereafter, the treaties and customary rules applying to particular categories of weapon are stated and explained article by article and rule by rule in a series of chapters.
The legal review of weapons is also discussed, both from the perspective of how such reviews should be undertaken and how such a system should be established. Having stated the law as it is, the book then discusses the way in which this dynamic field of international law develops in the light of various influences. In the final chapter, the prospects for future rule change are discussed.
The focus of this book is thus more specific and detailed than that of the more general texts on the law of armed conflict. Throughout this book, a conscious effort has been made to explain the law as it applies to all states. The book offers an accessible style of writing and a clear layout that promotes ease of reference.
Readership: Academics and students in the field of the law of armed conflict; practitioners in NGOs, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and legal officers in defence ministries and foreign ministries; those involved in the production of and trade in weapons; journalists.
- Contents:
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1. Introduction - 2. Components of the International Law of Weaponry
- 3. The Evolution of the Law of Weaponry
- 4. The Use of Weapons and the Law of Targeting
- 5. Customary Principles - Superfluous Injury and Unnecessary Suffering
- 6. Customary Principles - Indiscriminate Weapons
- 7. Weapons and the Environment
- 8. Conventional Weapons Convention
- 9. Poison, Poisoned Weapons, Asphyxiating Gases, Biological and Chemical Weapons
- 10. Firearms, Bullets and Analogous Projectiles
- 11. The Rules Relating to Mines, Booby-traps and Other Devices
- 12. Rules Relating to Other Specific Technologies
- 13. Nuclear Weapons
- 14. Applying Weapons Law to Particular Weapon Systems
- 15. Cluster Munitions
- 16. Weapons in Sea Warfare
- 17. Unexploded and Abandoned Weapons
- 18. Non-international Armed Conflict
- 19. Compliance with International Weapons Law
- 20. Technology, Humanitarian Concern and International Weapons Law
- 21. The Future of Weapons Law
William Boothby, Officer of the Royal Air Force Legal Branch
Bill Boothby has served for 27 years as an officer in the Royal Air Force Legal Branch. After service in the United Kingdom, Germany, Hong Kong, Cyprus and Croatia, he developed a professional interest in public international law in general, and the law relating to weaponry in particular. He developed and implemented the British system for the legal review of new weapons, and formed and led the team charged with conducting such reviews. He was a member of the British delegation to the Oslo Conference which, in 1997, negotiated the Ottawa Convention on Anti-Personnel Mines. He was also from 2000 until 2006 a member of the UK Delegation to numerous Conventional Weapons Convention Conferences in Geneva, including the conferences that culminated in the adoption of Protocol V to the Convention on Explosive Remnants of War. He undertook postgraduate study of the subject at Europa Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder) in Germany and presented his thesis, on which this book is based, in 2008.<
"...the primary merit of Boothby's monograph on the law of weapons in armed conflict is that the contemporary state of affairs is comprehensively summarized and that the standards applicable are presented in a convincing manner" - Daniel Heilmann, Senior Research Fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law, Heidelberg EJIL 21
