Violence, Proportionality, and Laws in War: Analyzing the U.S. Armed Acts in Afghanistan

Abstract

International laws for wars prohibit the states from violations. In the war zone, the purpose of the International Humanitarian Law is to provide justice to the victim and, most importantly, to protect the civilians or those who are not taking a direct part in the hostility. The purpose of this research is to investigate the US’ war acts in Afghanistan by using International Humani tarian Laws, specifically, the principles of Proportionality, Distinction, Unnecessary Suffering, and Militar y Advantage. This research aims to provide a critical analysis regarding the humanitarian laws and their implementation by the United States in Afghanistan during war on terror. The research was conducted by implementing qualitative exploratory research, for which data was gathered by conducting interviews of thirteen experts of law background. The interviewvees included law experts and researchers, think tanks, senior law analysts, military personnels, and univers it y professors. The main finding was that principle of proportionality and discrimination must be modified to provide status to the war actors instead of labelling them as terrorists, the conflict of Afghanistan must be classified in both International and non-international armed conflicts, actors in the war must be considered under the International armed conflict before June 2002. Furthermore, ICC needs to pressurize the US for the prosecution of war acts in Afghanistan to mitigate the greivances of people of Afghanistan.