Symposium : Human Rights

• Orakhelashvili, Alexander

Abstract

The principal question in terms of assessing the interaction between human rights applicable both in peacetime and war and humanitarian law applicable only to armed conflicts is whether the protection accorded to individuals under the latter is lower than that under the former. The clarification of this question requires the accurate assessment of the available evidence, and not the preconceived approach that tends to conceive one of these two fields as <it>lex specialis</it> that excludes or curtails the protection under the other field. This contribution examines the various aspects of this problem, such as the general interaction between human rights law and humanitarian law, and the relevance of particular human rights in the context of armed conflicts. The evidence dealt with in the course of this analysis exposes the fallacy of the argument that the humanitarian law protection may be lower than that under human rights law.