Summary

A new international political declaration offers a valuable tool to safeguard civilians from one of the greatest threats they face in contemporary armed conflict: the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. After three years of negotiations, countries will convene in Dublin, Ireland, on November 18, 2022 to endorse the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (the “Declaration”). Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) urge states to seize the moment by signing on to the document and setting out their understandings of its provisions. This paper explains how the Declaration should be interpreted so as to maximize the Declaration’s goal of civilian protection. Such interpretations are the first step toward strong implementation.

The civilian harm arising from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas is extensive and well-documented. On average, 90 percent of the people who are killed or injured when explosive weapons are used in populated areas are civilians. Damage to or destruction of buildings, homes, infrastructure, and other civilian objects further exacerbates civilian suffering by disrupting access to services critical for the civilian population, including education and health care, and driving displacement. These direct and indirect, also known as reverberating, effects of the use of explosive weapons in populated areas have affected countless civilians in recent and ongoing armed conflicts across many countries.

Recognizing the acute need for action, representatives of 130 states gathered in Austria in October 2019 for the Vienna Conference on the Protection of Civilians in Urban Warfare and launched a political process to address the civilian harm inflicted by the bombing and shelling of villages, towns, and cities. Thereafter, Ireland convened several rounds of consultations to develop a shared understanding of the problem and to produce the Declaration’s set of guidelines for national policy and practice to address it. The final text is the product of close collaboration among states, United Nations agencies, including the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), international organizations, notably the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and civil society organizations grouped under the International Network on Explosive Weapons (INEW), which Human Rights Watch co-founded in 2011.

States should endorse and promote the Declaration because it can help protect civilians from the effects of explosive weapons in three central ways. First, it promotes compliance with international humanitarian law. Second, it delineates additional steps that states should take to prevent the humanitarian consequences of the use in populated areas of explosive weapons, especially those with wide area effects. Third, it commits states to assess and address the human cost of using explosive weapons by collecting and sharing data, adopting robust and expansive victim assistance programs, and holding regular follow-up international meetings.

This paper elaborates on the purpose of the Declaration, which should inform understandings of its provisions. It then offers interpretations of the instrument’s key terms and commitments based on legal and policy precedent.