Ensuring compliance with International Humanitarian Law: the EU, France, and Spain

Abstract

Contemporary armed conflicts in different parts of the world, most notably in Syria, have shown that one of the greatest challenges of International Humanitarian Law (hereafter, ‘IHL’) is the lack of a centralized monitoring mechanism in charge of ensuring that it is correctly applied and enforced. While it is difficult to have access to reliable figures on the number of civilian casualties in armed conflicts, there is no doubt that too many men, women, and children are killed unlawfully every day in blatant violation of IHL. Against this background, the involvement of the European Union (hereafter, ‘EU’) in this field, formalized with the adoption of the Guidelines on Promoting Compliance with IHL in 2005 1, constitutes a promising development for the respect and promotion of IHL. The objective of this thesis is therefore to analyze to what extent the EU and two of its Member States – France and Spain – ensure respect for IHL pursuant to Common Article 1 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.