ABSTRACT
There is some consensus of opinion among jurists that the law of war has, in the course of its long historical development, sought to achieve some modest balance between military needs and the imperatives of humanitarianism. The Law of War is a sophisticated body of rules. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 reinforce the general principle that military necessity has no impact upon any rule of the law of war unless an express allowance for such military necessity is woven into the rule, or is elsewhere expressly agreed by States. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 display the interplay between military and humanitarian requirements, sometimes in a complex arrangement. The preamble to the Hague Convention No IV of 1907 can be seen as repugnant to the emergence of any new custom allowing a place for military necessity outside that expressly allowed in conventions. The humanitarian imperative is subject to the exception of urgent military necessity.
