Key Concepts

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) — also called the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) or jus in bello — is the body of international law that governs the conduct of armed conflict. It seeks to limit the effects of war by protecting persons who are not or are no longer participating in hostilities, and by restricting the means and methods of warfare.

IHL is distinct from jus ad bellum — the law governing whether a state may lawfully resort to force (governed by the UN Charter). IHL applies regardless of whether the armed conflict is lawful or unlawful, or who started it.

Core purpose: Even in war, there are limits. IHL represents the international community's effort to balance military necessity with humanitarian imperatives.

Historical Background — Henry Dunant and the Red Cross

The modern IHL framework traces its origins to the Battle of Solferino (1859), in northern Italy, where Swiss businessman Henry Dunant witnessed approximately 40,000 soldiers left wounded and dying without adequate care. His 1862 book A Memory of Solferino (Un Souvenir de Solférino) sparked an international movement.

In February 1863, Dunant and four colleagues — Gustave Moynier, Louis Appia, Théodore Maunoir, and General Guillaume-Henri Dufour — held their first meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. This gathering is now recognised as the founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

In August 1864, 12 nations signed the first Geneva Convention — binding armies to care for wounded soldiers regardless of nationality, and establishing the red cross on white background as the universal emblem for medical services.

The Four Geneva Conventions, 1949

After World War II, the 1864, 1906, and 1929 Geneva Conventions were revised and expanded. On 12 August 1949, four comprehensive conventions were adopted in Geneva:

Geneva Convention I (GC I) — Protection of Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field

  • Protects wounded and sick soldiers on land.
  • Mandates humane treatment; prohibits killing or abandoning wounded.
  • Protects medical personnel, units, and transports bearing the red cross/crescent emblem.

Geneva Convention II (GC II) — Protection of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea

  • Extends GC I protections to naval warfare.
  • Protects hospital ships and their personnel.

Geneva Convention III (GC III) — Treatment of Prisoners of War

  • Defines who qualifies as a Prisoner of War (POW).
  • Mandates humane treatment, adequate food, shelter, and medical care.
  • Prohibits torture, medical experiments, and public humiliation of POWs.
  • Article 17: POWs need only give name, rank, date of birth, and service number.

Geneva Convention IV (GC IV) — Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War

  • The most extensive convention — protects civilians in occupied territories.
  • Prohibits collective punishment, unlawful confinement, and deportation of civilians.
  • Regulates occupation law — duties of an occupying power.

Universality: All four Geneva Conventions of 1949 have been ratified by 196 states — making them the most widely ratified treaties in the history of international law. India is a party to all four.

Common Article 3 — appearing identically in all four conventions — establishes minimum standards for non-international armed conflicts (civil wars): humane treatment of persons not taking part in hostilities, prohibition of murder, torture, and degrading treatment.

Additional Protocols, 1977

Two Additional Protocols adopted on 8 June 1977 significantly expanded IHL:

Protocol I (AP I) — Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts

  • Strengthened protection for civilians in international conflicts.
  • Codified the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution.
  • Extended POW status to certain guerrilla combatants and national liberation movements.
  • Established rules on methods of warfare: prohibition of attacks on civilian objects, starvation of civilians.

Protocol II (AP II) — Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts

  • The first treaty exclusively governing internal armed conflicts.
  • Minimum standards for government forces and non-state armed groups in civil wars.
  • Prohibits attacks on civilian populations, pillage, and acts of terrorism.

Protocol III (2005) — introduced the Red Crystal as an additional emblem alongside the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

Core Principles of IHL

Distinction

Parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives. Attacks may only be directed at combatants and military objectives.

Proportionality

An attack is prohibited if it may be expected to cause incidental civilian loss or damage excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. Proportionality does not prohibit civilian casualties — it prohibits disproportionate civilian casualties.

Precaution

All feasible precautions must be taken to avoid and minimise civilian harm — including choice of means and methods of attack, and giving advance warning where possible.

Prohibition of Indiscriminate Attacks

Attacks that are not directed at specific military objectives, or that use means and methods that cannot be directed at a specific military objective, are prohibited (e.g., carpet bombing of cities, use of biological weapons).

Weapons treaties that give the rule teeth. The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban (Ottawa) Convention, 1997 bans a weapon that cannot discriminate once it is laid. For the first time since the Convention was concluded, states are leaving it: UN depositary notifications record Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania depositing notifications of withdrawal on 27 June 2025, Finland on 10 July 2025 and Poland on 20 August 2025; Estonia invoked Article 20(2) and “the deteriorated security situation”, while Poland's notification states that the decision is “without prejudice to the full commitment by the Republic of Poland to the principles of international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilian population and civilian objects during armed conflict”. Ukraine separately notified the Secretary-General that it would suspend implementation, with effect from 17 July 2025. Membership has not collapsed: the ICRC's FAQ page put the Convention at 161 states party (March 2026), and the UN Treaty Collection records 162 following Lebanon's accession on 1 May 2026. An ICRC Law and Policy post of 2 April 2026, written by the Secretaries-General of the Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish Red Cross Societies, records that civilians, many of them children, accounted for 90 per cent of recorded landmine and explosive-remnants-of-war casualties in 2024, and argues that anti-personnel mines cannot be reconciled with the prohibition of superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering or with the obligation of distinction. India is not a party to the Ottawa Convention.

Humane Treatment

Persons in the power of a party to the conflict — wounded, POWs, civilians — must be treated humanely at all times.

The ICRC — Role and Structure

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is the custodian and promoter of IHL.

  • Founded: 17 February 1863 (founding meeting in Geneva).
  • Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.
  • Legal status: Unique — a private Swiss association under the Swiss Civil Code, but with international legal personality recognised by states and the UN. Functions as a neutral, independent humanitarian organisation.
  • Key roles:
    • Monitors compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
    • Visits prisoners of war and political detainees.
    • Delivers humanitarian aid in conflict zones.
    • Traces missing persons; reunites families.
    • Promotes IHL through training militaries and governments.
    • Has the sole right under the Geneva Conventions to use the Red Cross emblem.

Scale and funding (as of 2026): On 21 November 2025 the ICRC Assembly approved a 2026 budget of CHF 1.8 billion, a 17 per cent reduction on 2025, in response to declining donor contributions. The cut entails a reduction of about 2,900 budgeted full-time-equivalent positions, roughly a third of it through voluntary departures and unfilled vacancies. The ICRC named Sudan, Israel and the occupied territories, Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo as its priority conflict zones for 2026, and recorded over 130 active armed conflicts worldwide (ICRC, 21 Nov 2025).

Humanitarian need is rising against a shrinking operational budget, the funding side of the enforcement gap.

The protection-of-civilians record. At the Security Council's annual open debate on 20 May 2026, during the ninth Protection of Civilians Week, OCHA's Edem Wosornu reported that one civilian was killed approximately every 14 minutes in 2025; that more than 1,350 attacks on medical care were recorded across 18 conflicts in 2025, a decade after resolution 2286 (2016) on protecting medical care in armed conflict; that 147 million people faced acute food insecurity driven largely by conflict; that over 9,300 cases of sexual violence were reported; that 186 journalists were killed between 2022 and 2025, a 67 per cent increase over 2018–2021; and that 144 humanitarian workers had already been killed, injured, abducted or detained in 2026. ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger told the Council that dehumanising rhetoric has historically preceded atrocity crimes.

War Crimes and ICC Jurisdiction

War crimes are serious violations of IHL — including wilful killing of civilians, torture of POWs, intentional attacks on hospitals, and use of prohibited weapons. They are subject to universal jurisdiction — any state may prosecute war criminals regardless of where the crime occurred.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), established by the Rome Statute (1998, effective 2002), has jurisdiction over:

  • War crimes
  • Crimes against humanity
  • Genocide
  • Crime of aggression

The ICC can prosecute individuals (not states) when national courts are unable or unwilling to prosecute. As of September 2026, 125 states are party to the Rome Statute (33 African, 19 Asia-Pacific, 20 Eastern European, 28 Latin American and Caribbean, 25 Western European and other States).

Withdrawal and its reversal: Article 127(1) of the Rome Statute allows a State Party to withdraw by written notification to the UN Secretary-General, taking effect one year later. Hungary's notification was effected on 2 June 2025 and would have taken effect on 2 June 2026; on 29 May 2026, four days before that date, Hungary withdrew the notification itself (UN depositary notification C.N.180.2026). The ICC welcomed the decision on 1 June 2026, restating the figure of 125 States Parties. No state has therefore left the Statute in this cycle. A revocation before effect is not unprecedented: The Gambia and South Africa both withdrew their notifications in 2017.

The Court under political pressure: Following Executive Order 14203 of February 2025, the United States has sanctioned ICC judges and prosecutors; a fresh round of designations on 18 December 2025 brought the total to 11. On 26 January 2026 the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, called on the United States to withdraw the sanctions and repeal the Executive Order, in a statement endorsed by some thirty other special procedures mandate holders. Set against the Hungarian withdrawal notification and its revocation, the picture is of a court under sustained pressure that has nonetheless not lost a member state.

India is not a party to the Rome Statute and has not ratified it, citing concerns about ICC's jurisdiction over situations that India considers within domestic jurisdiction, and the potential for politically motivated referrals.

India and IHL

India's Ratification Status:

  • India has ratified all four Geneva Conventions of 1949 — and is therefore bound by their core obligations, including Common Article 3.
  • India has not ratified Additional Protocol I or Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions.

Official position on AP I/II: In January 2019, the Minister of State for External Affairs stated in Parliament: "No decision has been taken to ratify the Additional Protocols I and II to the Geneva Conventions." India's objections historically related to AP I's provisions on national liberation movements: India argued that once such movements were classified as international conflicts under AP I, Protocol II for non-international conflicts would be redundant. There are also concerns about provisions on reservations and the definition of combatants.

Domestic legislation: India's Geneva Conventions Act, 1960 incorporates the four 1949 conventions into domestic law, making grave breaches of the conventions criminal offences under Indian law.

Institutional engagement: The main multilateral IHL process now running is the Global Initiative to Galvanize Political Commitment to International Humanitarian Law, launched by Brazil, China, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan and South Africa with the ICRC. It works through seven thematic workstreams (prevention and good practices; national IHL committees; IHL and peace; protecting civilian infrastructure; protection of hospitals; information and communication technologies; naval warfare), each co-chaired by supporting states and the ICRC, and is to culminate in a High-Level Meeting to Uphold Humanity in War in 2026. The ICRC President told the Security Council on 20 May 2026 that "some 111 nations" had endorsed it; the ICRC's published list of participating states carried 118 entries when read on 22 September 2026. That list includes Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. India does not appear on the ICRC's published list of participating states (as of 22 September 2026).

Position on Gaza, as stated in Parliament: India's voting record is not constant and should not be summarised as a blanket policy of abstention. India voted in favour of the UNGA resolution of December 2024 demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. On 12 June 2025, after a US veto in the Security Council on 4 June, the resumed Tenth Emergency Special Session adopted "Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations" (A/ES-10/L.34/Rev.1) by 149-12-19, a text that condemned any use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and the unlawful denial of humanitarian access, and demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages. India abstained. Answering Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question 1362 on 31 July 2025, MoS (External Affairs) Kirti Vardhan Singh gave the Government's reason: India abstained "taking into account the lack of negotiations and overall imbalance of the resolution text", while restating that India had condemned the terror attacks of 7 October 2023 and called for a ceasefire, release of hostages and "safe, timely and sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance".

Aid to Gaza, in official figures: Answering Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question 555 on 4 December 2025, the MEA stated that since the beginning of the conflict India has provided around 135 MT of humanitarian aid, including 81.5 MT of medicines and medical supplies in four tranches (October 2023, November 2023, October 2024 and November 2024), and has released a total of USD 12.5 million to UNRWA, including USD 2.5 million in November 2025. India was represented by MoS Kirti Vardhan Singh at the Gaza Peace Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh on 13 October 2025 and welcomed the agreement on the first phase of the Gaza Peace Plan. In the reconstruction phase, Secretary (CPV & OIA) Sripriya Ranganathan represented India at the second Ministerial Meeting of the Palestine Donor Group in Brussels on 13 July 2026, reaffirming support for a two-state solution and for Palestine's UN membership and announcing new projects in rehabilitation, health, education and vocational training.

Humanitarian response as the other half of the record: India's non-ratification of the Additional Protocols sits alongside an active disaster-relief record, which the Government sets out in Parliament. Answering Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 1060 on 5 December 2025, the MEA stated that under Operation Brahma, launched after the Myanmar earthquake of 28 March 2025, India provided approximately 750 MT of HADR supplies and 20 pre-fabricated structures, deployed an 80-member NDRF heavy search-and-rescue team and a 127-member Indian Army field hospital in Mandalay that treated 2,519 patients, and used 9 IAF aircraft and 5 Indian Navy ships. The same answer lists India's recent HADR operations (Maitri in Nepal, Dost in Turkiye and Syria, Karuna and Sadbhav in Southeast Asia, Brahma in Myanmar) and records that India has assisted over 150 countries in the last five years. Disaster relief is not IHL, but the contrast is the natural material for an answer on India as humanitarian first responder versus India as treaty holdout.

IHL vs. International Human Rights Law (IHRL)

Both frameworks protect persons — but they operate in different contexts and with different rules:

FeatureIHLIHRL
Primary applicationArmed conflict (international and non-international)Peacetime and armed conflict
Binding on whomStates and non-state armed groupsPrimarily states
Key treatiesGeneva Conventions, Additional ProtocolsICCPR, ICESCR, CAT, CRC
DerogationNo derogation permitted for core rulesSome rights derogable in emergencies
Enforcing bodyICRC (monitoring, neutral intermediary); ICC (individual criminal responsibility); ICJ (state responsibility and advisory opinions); HRC-mandated commissions of inquiry and fact-finding missions; ad hoc tribunals (e.g. Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, agreement signed 25 June 2025)UN Treaty Bodies, Regional Courts

During armed conflict, both frameworks apply simultaneously — IHL as lex specialis (more specific law) governs the conduct of hostilities; IHRL continues to apply where consistent with IHL.

Recent Applications

Gaza Conflict (2023 — ceasefire phase, 2026)

The Gaza conflict raised fundamental IHL questions: lawfulness of blockades, proportionality of aerial bombardment in densely populated areas, protection of hospitals and medical personnel, use of civilian infrastructure by armed groups, and starvation as a method of warfare. Hostilities ran from October 2023 to the ceasefire that took effect on 10 October 2025; an earlier ceasefire of 19 January 2025 collapsed on 18 March 2025.

Briefing the Security Council on the day of that collapse, Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher reported the resumption of Israeli airstrikes and unconfirmed reports of hundreds killed on 17 March, and stated that since 2 March 2025 Israeli authorities had halted the entry of all life-saving supplies, including food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas, for 2.1 million people, with power to southern Gaza's desalination plant cut and clean water limited for 600,000 people. Denmark invoked Israel's obligations as an occupying power and Sierra Leone the Fourth Geneva Convention, whose Article 55 requires the occupying power to ensure food and medical supplies for the population.

On 22 August 2025 the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate, the first famine confirmed in the Middle East. WFP explained that an IPC famine classification requires three thresholds to be breached (extreme food deprivation, acute malnutrition and starvation-related deaths) and that all three had been breached in Gaza City, with spread projected to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by end-September. WHO's representative reported more than 12,000 children identified as acutely malnourished in July 2025 alone and 206 deaths from the effects of malnutrition in 2025 as verified by WHO. OHCHR's spokesperson stated the legal point plainly: using starvation as a method of warfare is a war crime, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing. This is the factual predicate for AP I Article 54 and Rome Statute Article 8(2)(b)(xxv), and it is the cleanest available illustration that IHL's starvation prohibition is not merely declaratory.

On 16 September 2025 the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the OPT, chaired by Navi Pillay, concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces had committed four of the five genocidal acts defined in the 1948 Genocide Convention (killing; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting destructive conditions of life; imposing measures intended to prevent births), covering conduct from 7 October 2023 to 31 July 2025. It applied the ICJ's "only reasonable inference" standard from Bosnia v. Serbia, found that President Herzog, Prime Minister Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Gallant had incited genocide, and recommended that states cease arms transfers that may be used for genocidal acts. Note the category carefully: a Human Rights Council-mandated commission makes findings on state responsibility, not criminal convictions. Keeping COI findings, ICJ proceedings against states and ICC proceedings against individuals distinct is standard Mains material.

The fighting ended under the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, dated 29 September 2025, with the ceasefire taking effect on 10 October 2025. Of the 251 people taken captive on 7 October 2023, 168 were returned alive; the last living hostage was returned on 13 October 2025 and the last deceased hostage on 26 January 2026. Israel released 250 prisoners serving life sentences and about 1,700 Gazans detained after 7 October 2023. Detention, release and repatriation on this scale is a GC III and GC IV question rather than a purely political one.

At its 10046th meeting on 17 November 2025 the Security Council adopted resolution 2803 (2025) by 13 votes to none with 2 abstentions (China and the Russian Federation), endorsing the Comprehensive Plan, welcoming a Board of Peace as a transitional administration and authorising a temporary International Stabilization Force. The Council underscored full resumption of humanitarian aid "in a manner consistent with relevant international legal principles" and decided that the Board and the authorised civil and security presences remain authorised until 31 December 2027, with a written progress report to the Council every six months. A Council-authorised transitional administration plus a multinational force for an occupied territory is a rare construct, and it is directly testable on occupation law and on the difference between Council authorisation and UN peacekeeping. The first of those reports, S/2026/418 of 15 May 2026, covers 17 November 2025 to 14 May 2026. It records that seven months into the ceasefire the guns have largely fallen silent for the first time in two years, while violations continue on a near-daily basis; that the guarantors are Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and the United States; and that a 15-point Roadmap (establishing the NCAG as the sole legitimate transitional authority, requiring verified decommissioning of weapons and a phased IDF withdrawal to the Gaza perimeter) had been presented but not finalised by the close of the reporting period.

The courts on Gaza. Two ICJ advisory opinions on the OPT are frequently conflated; they are distinct.

  • Advisory opinion of 19 July 2024 (ICJ case 186), Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. This is the opinion on the prolonged occupation, annexation and settlements.
  • Advisory opinion of 22 October 2025 (ICJ case 196), Obligations of Israel in relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organizations and Third States in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This is the opinion on humanitarian access, relief agencies and UN privileges and immunities, requested by UNGA resolution 79/232 (the Secretary-General's letter of transmission is dated 20 December 2024). Forty-five written statements were filed and hearings ran from 28 April to 2 May 2025.

In the 2025 opinion the Court held unanimously that Israel, as occupying power, must ensure that the population of the OPT has the essential supplies of daily life, must respect and protect relief and medical personnel and facilities, must respect the prohibition on forcible transfer and deportation, must allow ICRC visits to protected persons it detains, and must respect the prohibition on the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. By ten votes to one (Vice-President Sebutinde against) it held that Israel must agree to and facilitate relief schemes, including UNRWA's, and not impede them, and must cooperate in good faith with the UN and respect UN privileges, immunities and premises under Article 105 of the Charter and Articles II, V, VI and VII of the 1946 Convention. The significance for an answer is that humanitarian access stops being a matter of policy or goodwill and becomes a judicially stated obligation.

An advisory opinion is not binding, and the standard follow-through is political. On 12 December 2025 the General Assembly adopted A/80/L.26 by 139 in favour, 12 against and 19 abstentions, welcoming the opinion and demanding that Israel comply with the obligations the Court had set out, including immediately allowing and facilitating life-saving humanitarian assistance and basic services, including relief provided by UNRWA. The Assembly had renewed UNRWA's mandate for three further years the previous week.

The contentious case, South Africa v. Israel under the Genocide Convention, continues. The Court extended the time-limit for Israel's Counter-Memorial by Orders of 14 April 2025 and 20 October 2025, and by an Order of 21 May 2026 fixed time-limits for a Reply by South Africa and a Rejoinder by Israel. ICJ pleadings are not made public until the Court so decides, so no filing date for the Counter-Memorial appears on the public case file. What is on the file is a lengthening list of declarations of intervention under Article 63 of the Statute: Comoros (29 October 2025), Belgium (23 December 2025), Paraguay (3 March 2026), the Netherlands and Iceland (11 March 2026), and Namibia, the United States, Hungary and Fiji (12 March 2026). On 22 September 2026 the Court announced that Colombia had withdrawn its declaration of intervention. Article 63 intervention (a right where the construction of a convention to which the intervening state is party is in question) is distinct from Article 62 intervention (leave to intervene on an interest of a legal nature), and that distinction is itself testable.

Taken with the ICJ's provisional measures order of January 2024 in South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention case) and the ICC arrest warrants against PM Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant (November 2024), these rulings and resolutions collectively represent the most significant IHL accountability developments in decades. Gaza is now a four-layer accountability story: ICJ provisional measures (January 2024) and the advisory opinions of 19 July 2024 and 22 October 2025; ICC arrest warrants (November 2024); a Human Rights Council commission's genocide finding (16 September 2025); and a Security Council-endorsed settlement (resolution 2803 of 17 November 2025). IHL principles tested: distinction, proportionality, precaution, humanitarian access, the prohibition on starvation as a method of warfare, and the occupying power's duties under GC IV.

Russia-Ukraine War (2022–ongoing)

Allegations of war crimes include intentional attacks on civilian infrastructure (energy grids, hospitals), deportation of Ukrainian children, use of cluster munitions in populated areas, and torture of POWs. The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023 for the alleged unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children.

A dedicated Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine has been provided for but is not yet operational. Ukraine requested it on 13 May 2025; Council of Europe foreign ministers endorsed it in Luxembourg the following day; the Committee of Ministers' ad hoc working party cleared the three legal documents on 20 June 2025; and the bilateral agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe, with the Tribunal's Statute annexed, was signed in Strasbourg on 25 June 2025. The Tribunal will try those bearing the greatest responsibility for the crime of aggression, its jurisdiction based on Ukraine's territorial jurisdiction, with the definition of aggression drawn from Article 8 bis of the Rome Statute. It exists because of the ICC's jurisdictional limits over aggression, and it is a Council of Europe route rather than a UN one. It is the cleanest live example of the crime of aggression (jus ad bellum) being prosecuted separately from war crimes (jus in bello).

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine reported its deportation and unfair-trial findings to the Human Rights Council on 12 March 2026. Chair Erik Mose said the Commission has verified the deportation and transfer of 1,205 Ukrainian children, that 80 per cent have not returned after four years, and that these acts, committed pursuant to a policy conceived and executed at the highest level, amount to deportation and forcible transfer as a crime against humanity and to enforced disappearance as a crime against humanity. The Commission also found that trials of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war in Russian courts, with systematically fabricated evidence often obtained by torture, constitute grave breaches of IHL and therefore war crimes. OHCHR figures cited in the statement: over 15,000 civilians killed and over 41,000 injured since 2022, with casualties up 31 per cent in 2025.

India maintained its abstention on UN votes condemning Russian actions, defending its stance on the basis of strategic autonomy and the need for dialogue. PM Modi's July 2024 visit to Moscow and his August 2024 visit to Kyiv represented India's attempt at a potential mediator role. Modi's embrace of Putin coincided with Russian missile strikes on a Ukrainian children's hospital, drawing sharp criticism from Zelensky and EU leaders.

UPSC angle: India's abstention pattern at the UN on Ukraine resolutions is a recurring Mains question about India's foreign policy and its IHL obligations. The distinction between jus ad bellum (legality of Russia's invasion, now the subject of a dedicated tribunal) and jus in bello (conduct of hostilities under IHL) is critical.

Sudan (2023–ongoing)

The Rapid Support Forces' capture of El Fasher in late October 2025, after an 18-month siege, produced findings of mass killings, starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, attacks on medical and humanitarian personnel, and sexual violence. A UN Human Rights Office report published on 13 February 2026, based on interviews with over 140 victims and witnesses, documented more than 6,000 killings in the first three days of the final offensive: at least 4,400 killed inside the city and over 1,600 along exit routes, including around 500 people reportedly killed in a single incident at the Al-Rashid dormitory at El Fasher University on 26 October 2025. The Office found reasonable grounds to believe that the RSF and affiliated Arab militia committed war crimes including murder, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, indiscriminate attacks, use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, attacks on medical and humanitarian personnel, rape, torture, pillage and use of children in hostilities.

The UN Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan went further. Its report Hallmarks of Genocide in El-Fasher, presented on 19 February 2026, found that at least three underlying acts of genocide were committed against the Zaghawa and Fur (killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and deliberately inflicting destructive conditions of life), and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference. The Mission was established by Human Rights Council resolution A/HRC/RES/54/2 in October 2023; resolution A/HRC/RES/S-38/1 of 14 November 2025 mandated the urgent El Fasher inquiry.

Accountability for Darfur also moved, twenty years late. On 6 October 2025 ICC Trial Chamber I found Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman guilty of 27 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur between August 2003 and April 2004, the Court's first Darfur verdict; on 9 December 2025 he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment, with time in detention from 9 June 2020 deducted. The Defence filed a notice of appeal against the judgment on 6 November 2025, and Defence and Prosecution filed sentence appeals on 8 and 9 January 2026. The Darfur situation reached the Court through the Security Council referral in resolution 1593 (2005) of 31 March 2005, although Sudan is not a State Party. The case is therefore the standard example of two things at once: ICC jurisdiction over a non-State Party by Council referral, and the length of the delay between referral and first conviction.

Iran (2026)

An armed conflict beginning on 28 February 2026 with US and Israeli airstrikes drew renewed IHL analysis of strikes affecting nuclear installations. It puts two separate bodies of law in play at once: jus ad bellum (the scope of Article 51 self-defence) and jus in bello (distinction, proportionality, precaution, and the special protection of works and installations containing dangerous forces). The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, which records that start date, applies both IHRL and IHL to the conduct of the parties. By 10 April 2026 the Mission reported more than 3,000 fatalities, including at least 216 children, 251 women and three Iranian Red Crescent Society emergency personnel, with 1,881 children and 4,610 women injured, and at least 315 medical and emergency facilities, 760 schools and educational facilities and 29 universities damaged (figures reported to the Mission). A temporary ceasefire was reached on 7 April 2026; hostilities later resumed.

The distinctive IHL question is the targeting of nuclear sites. The Mission's statement of 10 April 2026 records that the IAEA confirmed strikes had affected nuclear facilities at Khondab (Markazi), Yazd and Bushehr, the last reportedly struck for the fourth time, and warns of radiation exposure and long-term environmental harm. It recalls that IHL prohibits attacks on civilian objects, that attacks expected to cause excessive incidental civilian harm are prohibited, and that "particular care must be taken in relation to works and installations containing dangerous forces, such as nuclear electrical generating stations". That formula is the language of Additional Protocol I, Article 56 (works and installations containing dangerous forces: dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations), although the Mission did not cite the article by number. The Mission also warned that rhetoric by senior US officials about bombing Iran "back to the stone age" may indicate violations, IHL prohibiting threats of violence whose primary purpose is to spread terror among civilians.

The nuclear-safety dimension has a parallel institutional track. UN News reported on 4 April 2026 that IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi was "deeply concerned" by the latest strike affecting the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, the fourth in recent weeks, in which a member of the site's physical protection staff was killed by a projectile fragment and a building was damaged, with no increase in radiation levels recorded. Grossi restated the IAEA's Seven Indispensable Pillars for Nuclear Safety and Security in Armed Conflict, introduced in March 2022, and the position that nuclear power plant sites or nearby areas must never be attacked. For Prelims, the Seven Pillars and their 2022 origin are the fact to hold; for Mains, note that this is nuclear safety as an IHL question, distinct from non-proliferation.

The Security Council addressed the same conflict from the other side of the legal divide. At its 10119th meeting on 11 March 2026 it adopted resolution 2817 (2026) by 13 votes to none with 2 abstentions (China and the Russian Federation), condemning "in the strongest terms" Iran's attacks against Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan, specifically condemning attacks against residential areas and civilian objects, and demanding that Iran halt threats, provocations and actions aimed at interfering with maritime trade and support to proxy groups. Nearly 140 member states co-sponsored the text; a separate Russian draft was rejected by 4 votes to 2 with 9 abstentions. Liberia, speaking also for the DRC and Somalia, warned that the Council must not endorse interpretations of Article 51 that "risk eroding longstanding constraints on the use of force". One Council text thus carries both jus ad bellum (the scope of self-defence) and jus in bello (attacks on residential areas), which is exactly the pair this chapter asks students to keep separate.

On 14 September 2026 the Mission reported that a US airstrike on 1 September 2026 had hit a house in Kuhestak city, Hormozgan, where a wedding was under way, with Iranian media reporting five killed including two children and a woman, and that a reported US airstrike on 30 July 2026 had destroyed a home in Qeshm city, killing a man, a woman and their two-year-old son. Chair Sara Hossain said civilians must be protected at all times, and the Mission recalled the obligations of distinction, proportionality and precaution, and that failure to observe them may give rise to responsibility including for war crimes.

Attacks on Civilian Shipping in the Red Sea

Attacks on merchant shipping sit at the interface of IHL and UNCLOS freedom of navigation, and seafarers are civilians. The Secretary-General's statement of 11 July 2025 "strongly condemns the resumption of Houthi attacks on civilian vessels transiting the Red Sea, especially the attacks that took place over 6 to 8 July 2025". The Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated Eternity C was attacked and sank, with four crew reported dead and 15 still missing as of 11 July, some taken by the rebels; the Magic Seas was attacked on 6 July and all 22 crew were rescued. The Secretary-General stressed that Security Council resolution 2768 on Houthi attacks against merchant and commercial vessels must be fully respected.

Operation Sindoor and IHL Principles — May 2025

India's Operation Sindoor raised IHL questions about proportionality, distinction, and the use of force against non-state actors sheltered in another state's territory. The official account is the MEA's Special Briefing transcript of 7 May 2025, and the attributions in it are worth keeping straight. Col. Sofiya Qureshi stated that the operation was carried out on the night of 6–7 May 2025 between 0105 and 0130 hours. Wg Cdr Vyomika Singh stated that nine terrorist camps were targeted and destroyed, that "no military establishments were targeted", and that the locations were so selected as to avoid damage to civilian infrastructure and loss of civilian lives, which is the language of distinction and of precautions in attack. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri described the actions as "measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible".

Pakistan characterised the strikes as attacks on civilian areas. The episode is legally significant as India is not in a formal "armed conflict" with Pakistan under IHL, raising questions about whether international humanitarian law or international human rights law (IHRL) governs such cross-border counterterrorism operations.

UPSC angle: Operation Sindoor connects IHL principles (distinction, proportionality, military necessity) with India's counter-terrorism strategy. Expect a Mains question linking IHL, cross-border terrorism, and state responsibility.

Myanmar Military Operations and India's IHL Dilemma

The Myanmar civil war (post-February 2021 coup) continued to intensify through 2024, with the military junta facing a coordinated offensive from resistance forces. India suspended the Free Movement Regime (FMR) along the India-Myanmar border in February 2024 and announced plans to fence the 1,643 km border. India's Myanmar policy has to balance IHL concerns (against supporting a regime committing gross violations) with strategic interests (connectivity, anti-insurgency cooperation, countering Chinese influence).

UPSC angle: India-Myanmar-IHL nexus is important for GS-II. India's decision to engage with the junta despite documented atrocities is tested in questions about India's foreign policy principles vs. pragmatism.

Cross-paper relevance

  • GS2 (primary) — Geneva Conventions; IHL principles (distinction, proportionality, precaution); ICC; India's peacekeeping obligations; Operation Sindoor and IHL
  • GS3 — Internal security: IHL applicability in counter-terrorism; armed forces and rules of engagement
  • GS4 (Ethics) — Ethics of warfare; military ethics; civilian protection as moral imperative; the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
  • Essay — "Is international humanitarian law enforceable in the 21st century?"; "War crimes and the limits of international justice"

What Changed in 2024–26

Three shifts define the window, and each of them is a shift in the machinery of IHL rather than in its rules.

Accountability stacked up on a single conflict. Gaza drew the ICJ twice in an advisory capacity, in July 2024 on occupation and settlements and in October 2025 on humanitarian access, alongside a contentious Genocide Convention case that is still running and still attracting declarations of intervention. Add the ICC arrest warrants of November 2024, the Pillay Commission's genocide finding of September 2025 and the Security Council's endorsement of a political settlement in November 2025, and no single conflict has previously drawn so many forums at once. The lesson is institutional rather than moral: each forum answers a different legal question, state responsibility, individual criminal liability, treaty interpretation, collective security, and an answer that runs them together loses marks. What to watch is the six-monthly reporting cycle established by resolution 2803, which turns occupation law from episodic litigation into a standing item before the Council, and the Board of Peace mandate that runs on to the end of 2027.

Genocide determinations became plural. The finding on Gaza in September 2025 and the Fact-Finding Mission's finding on El Fasher in February 2026 came from two different Human Rights Council bodies within months of each other. Two determinations in a single window are the material for answers on selectivity in international justice and on the Genocide Convention's duty of prevention, which binds every party including India. The Abd-Al-Rahman conviction of October 2025 supplies the counterpoint of delay: the Court's first Darfur verdict arrived two decades after the Security Council referred the situation.

The adjudication side advanced while the enforcement side retreated. Executive Order 14203 of February 2025 and the further designations of December 2025 put ICC judges and prosecutors under United States sanctions, and Hungary notified withdrawal from the Rome Statute in June 2025 before revoking the notification in May 2026, days short of it taking effect. For the first time since the Ottawa Convention was concluded in 1997, states began to leave it: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in June 2025, Finland in July and Poland in August, with Ukraine suspending implementation from July 2025, each citing the security situation while insisting on continued fidelity to IHL. That is the live tension for a Mains answer, because states are not repudiating the law, they are repudiating particular constraints while claiming the principle. The Ukraine file shows the same asymmetry from the other direction, in a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression created by treaty in June 2025 that has still to begin work, and the Red Sea attacks of July 2025 show how little an existing Council resolution restrains a non-state party at sea.

For India the window changed the demands on a settled position rather than the position itself. India voted for a ceasefire in December 2024 and abstained in June 2025, and the Government explained the abstention in Parliament by reference to the balance of the text rather than to the law. India remains outside Additional Protocols I and II, the Rome Statute and the Ottawa Convention, and it is absent from the Global Initiative on IHL that several of its neighbours have joined, even while its relief operations keep it among the region's first responders. Operation Sindoor in May 2025 and the Iran conflict of 2026 pose the same question in different forms: when force is used against targets inside another state short of a declared war, which body of law governs, and who decides. The High-Level Meeting to Uphold Humanity in War, due in 2026, is where India's answer will next be visible.

PYQ Relevance

  • IHL has appeared as a direct question in UPSC Law Optional (Paper I) — in 2014 and 2023. For GS2, IHL-related content is typically integrated into broader questions on India's foreign policy, humanitarian crises, or India's position on UN peacekeeping and conflict zones.
  • Likely GS2 Mains angle: "Discuss the relevance of International Humanitarian Law in contemporary armed conflicts. What is India's position on IHL treaties?" (standard analysis-type question).
  • Prelims: ICRC founding year, Geneva Conventions count, non-refoulement vs. Common Article 3, India's treaty ratification status.

Exam Strategy

Approach: Structure IHL answers around three levels: (1) Foundational treaties — what they protect and whom; (2) Core principles — distinction, proportionality, precaution; (3) Enforcement gap — why violations persist and what mechanisms exist.

Key numbers to memorise:

  • ICRC founding: 1863 (February)
  • Four Geneva Conventions: 12 August 1949
  • Additional Protocols: 8 June 1977
  • Universal ratification of GCs: 196 states
  • Rome Statute: 125 States Parties (September 2026); Hungary's withdrawal notification of 2 June 2025 was itself withdrawn on 29 May 2026
  • Anti-Personnel Mine Ban (Ottawa) Convention: 161 states party (ICRC, March 2026), 162 on the UN Treaty Collection after Lebanon's accession on 1 May 2026
  • India: Party to all 4 GCs; NOT a party to AP I, AP II, the Rome Statute or the Ottawa Convention

Distinguish: IHL (law during conflict) vs. jus ad bellum (law on resort to force) vs. IHRL (human rights law). Many students conflate these.

For current coverage of IHL applications in the Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Iran conflicts, visit Ujiyari.com.

Key Terms

Geneva Conventions

  • Definition: The Geneva Conventions are four international treaties adopted on 12 August 1949 (with three later Additional Protocols) that form the core of international humanitarian law, setting binding rules to protect the wounded and sick, prisoners of war, and civilians during armed conflict.
  • Context: Negotiated in Geneva under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the aftermath of the Second World War, the 1949 Conventions revised and expanded earlier humanitarian treaties dating back to 1864. They entered into force on 21 October 1950 and have since achieved universal ratification by 196 states, making them among the most widely accepted treaties in the world. India ratified all four Conventions in 1950 and gave them domestic effect through the Geneva Conventions Act, 1960.
  • UPSC Relevance: This is a foundational GS2 (International Relations) concept underpinning questions on international humanitarian law, the laws of war, and the role of the ICRC and the UN system. For Prelims, aspirants should know the subject of each of the four Conventions, the years of the Additional Protocols (1977 and 2005), the universal ratification figure, and that India has ratified the four Conventions but not Additional Protocols I and II. For Mains, it links to debates on protection of civilians and prisoners of war, India's stance on internal armed conflicts, and the gap between IHL norms and contemporary warfare. No direct PYQ is cited here; it remains a high-utility background concept for IR and ethics-in-war discussions.

Sources & Verification

Gaza — hostilities, ceasefires and the Security Council

Gaza — courts and commissions

India's position and assistance

Sudan

Iran (2026)

Ukraine

Treaties, institutions and the protection-of-civilians record