JAG CENTRAL

Kenneth Anderson from the Law of War and Just War Theory Blog has this post on why the International Committee of the Red Cross is no longer a credible authority on the Law of War; it has bought into Euro-Decadence:

The essential problem here is not fundamentally the ICRC. It is that the debate and conversation over the rules of war has lost its element of reciprocity - those who propose to set the rules are no longer those who fight. The European states write many memos and hold many meetings on what the rules of war should be - but all they really mean by this is that they write many memos on how the US should behave. The ICRC participates in this charade by elevating mere statements, memos, resolutions, diplomatic statements, decisions of tribunals over actual state practice by states that fight wars while making serious efforts to obey the rules - i.e., the United States. The Western European states, Britain excepted, are really, in this matter of negotiating the rules of war, less like states than NGOs. They are free to propose any extravagant set of rules they feel like, knowing that it will never impede their military activities, because they have none. The United States, on the other hand, must continue to do what states traditionally have had to do in the rules of war - balance humanitarian requirements with military necessity. If you have no military necessities, you are not so much a state in these matters as an NGO; it costs you and your people nothing to impose rules on everyone else. The ICRC has bought into this model, and this will eventually bring - is bringing - an erosion of the legitimacy of the rules of war themselves.