To Örebro University

Over the 22 yearlong observation mission of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), the relationship between Israel and Palestine came to evolve in a different direction than what was foreseen in the Oslo process. Nevertheless, TIPH’s legal framework and tasks remained the same. This paper aims to examine, through the perspective of TIPH’s legal advisors, challenges met and experiences made during two decades of interpretation and implementation of the TIPH mandate.

This chapter analyses from a European perspective the complex relationship between international human rights law (IHRL) and international humanitarian law (IHL) in the context of multinational military operations. In construing a European perspective, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is given specific attention. Due attention is also paid to relevant documents by the Council of Europe (CoE), the EU, UN organs, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as state practice. The chapter adopts an instrumental approach, inquiring whether the interaction between IHRL and IHL helps to ensure a higher level of protection for civilians and civilian objects from the effects of armed conflicts. After discussing their shared foundational value, namely protecting human dignity, the degree of convergence between IHRL and IHL is assessed in four main areas, namely the protection of civilians, the right to humanitarian assistance, detention, and the right to reparations for victims of armed conflicts.

Degrading treatment of dead persons is vast in contemporary conflicts and the circulation on social media of documentation of such ill-treatment has raised the issue of whether the dead may be considered as protected persons and whether posing for photos with fallen enemies may bring about criminal liability for the war crime of outrage upon personal dignity. This article examines these issues through international law and Swedish war crime legislation and case law. 

A war crime may be defined as a serious violation of a rule of international humanitarian law (IHL) which brings about individual criminal liability. To establish whether an act constitutes a war crime it is thus necessary to establish that IHL applied to and regulated the act. Hence, it must also be established that an international or non-international armed conflict existed at the time and place where the act occurred, and that the act had sufficient nexus to the armed conflict. The present article focuses on the classification of conflict and the nexus between the act and the conflict in Swedish legislation and case law in the light of international law.This article is part of a volume on investigation and prosecution in Scandinavia of international crimes.