Part 1 The Law of Targeting in Context, 1 Introduction

At a time when those whom the law would protect are routinely attacked in defiance of the most widely accepted and fundamental international law principles, when persons who have no right to do so regularly participate in hostilities, and when emblems that ought to be respected and protected are instead made the object of attack, it is timely to restate clearly and definitively what international law requires of all those involved in the use of armed force. That is the simple purpose of this book. To some it will come as quite a surprise that, when peaceable...