Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-94d59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T09:16:28.624Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

International Humanitarian Law and Bombing Campaigns: Legitimate Military Objectives and Excessive Collateral Damage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2011

Christine Byron
Affiliation:
Cardiff University, Wales, UK e-mail: ByronC@cardiff.ac.uk
Get access

Extract

Despite the introduction and increasing use of ‘smart’ bombs, recent bombing campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and Serbia, formerly known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), have resulted in what some commentators consider to be an unacceptably high level of civilian casualties, especially when compared with the low level of combatant casualties in the attacking force. During the most recent Gulf conflict, a conservative estimate suggests that over 1,100 Iraqi civilians died within the first 2 months as a result of aerial bombardment or missile attacks by Coalition forces and that approximately another 600 civilians were killed by unexploded ordinance during the same period. There are no reliable statistics for civilians injured by aerial bombardment and unexploded ordinance in that period but the number is likely to have been many times higher than the number of fatalities.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Instituut and the Authors 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)