Military necessity and international law of war

Military necessity and international law of war are antipodal notions, because the military necessity emerges in war while the international law is based on the principles of humanness. Military necessity is a circumstance which calls for undertaking the forceful measures with the purpose of attainment of success in war. In between war and humanness stands the international law of war, which is the compromise between an unlimited freedom of warfare action, necessary for the attainment of the goal of war, and the demands posed by humanness. Thus the military necessity becomes an allowed digression from the rules of the law of war. Evolution of their mutual relationship began by the end of XVII and in XVIII century, by division of wars to 'just' and 'unjust' ones, and in teachings of the first theoreticians of the international law - Grotius, Martens and Klueber. In XIX century and by the beginning of XX century was waged an entire 'war' between the followers of these two institutes over the issue of preponderance of one or the other. The ones who were putting the military necessity before the international law of war were justifying such advantage by the right of emergency, and therefore instituted the theory of military necessity. However, abuses of the principle of military necessity and violations of many rules of the international law in the course of the First and Second World Wars resulted in the gradual abandonment of the theory of military necessity after the Second World War. By the ban on war contained in the UN Charter the legal foundation for claiming the military necessity was rejected, and the principle of military necessity was thus reduced to normal framework of military requirements, since war still remained a reality in international relations. Modern views and the glowingly pronounced role of the international law diminished the significance of the principle of military necessity in favor of the increased role of the international law. However, in codification of the international law adopted the Second World War the military necessity was taken into account, and attempts were made towards precise formulations concerning digressions from humanitarian requirements. The danger of recurrence of the theory of military necessity still exists, since the armed conflicts remained an instrument for the solution of disputes between states.