The Proliferation and Codification of the Laws of War

This chapter makes three arguments in presenting a history of the development of the laws of war governing belligerent conduct. First, the laws of war have increased dramatically in number over the past 150 years. Second, military participation in international humanitarian lawmaking has similarly decreased dramatically. And third, the laws of war were designed by states and meant to govern interstate war; rebel groups in civil war are typically only mentioned with the purpose of denying them international legal standing. The analysis in this chapter is based on original content analysis of the commentaries to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions.