7 Occupations Since the 1970s

This chapter reviews occupations that have taken place since the 1970s and which have a common thread: in none of them was the law of occupation invoked by the occupant as the source of its authority or respected as a guide to its actions. Changes in the basic norms of international law, and primarily the outlawing of war, as well as changing socio-economic conditions and military capabilities, reduced the utility of invoking formal occupant status. But the lack of respect for the law of occupation was not necessarily ill-intended: in some exceptional situations...