Air Warfare and International Humanitarian Law

Abstract

The impact of the air power on the battlefield, during the various armed conflicts that occurred in 20 and 21st Century is undeniable. Yet, despite the significant of air warfare in military operations, the legal boundaries of what is permissible during the war in the air had been an area of immense friction between the humanitarian considerations, the security interest of states and the effectiveness of military aviation. This monography aims to comprehensively approach the legal framework of the law of warfare, since the first attempt to regulate the new dimension of warfare that occurred in the end of the 19th Century, to the raising dilemmas regarding aerial lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS). In selected chapters, the work is refereeing to the value of the Hague Rules of Warfare, the impact of the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention of 1977, and the jurisprudence related to the air warfare.