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Lip Service To The Laws Of War: Humanitarian Law And United Nations Armed Forces, Richard D. Glick

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article concludes that the United Nations is bound by the rules of customary international humanitarian law, and occupies a horizontal relationship with the other subjects of IHL that it engages in armed conflict. When U.N. armed forces engage in armed conflict, the Organization qualifies as a "party to armed conflict" within the meaning of IHL, and U.N. troops also fall within the IHL definition of "combatants," rendering the Organization subject to IHL obligations. Continuing U.N. arguments to the contrary either deprive IHL definitions of their determinacy or regress to a claim of undeserved special status for Charter norms and …