The Law of War and Military Necessity

Abstract

To many international lawyers and army officers the terms “law of war” and “military necessity” are mutually incompatible. Many army officers consider the law of war as no more than a collection of pious platitudes, valueless, so they think, because it has no force and effect. Some international lawyers regard military necessity as the bête noire of international jurisprudence, destroying all legal restriction and allowinguncontrolled brute force to rage rampant over the battlefield or wherever the military have control.