ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the notion of collective punishment and its legal regulation under the law of armed conflict. In times of international and non-international armed conflict, collective punishment is prohibited. This prohibition stems from the 1949 Geneva Conventions, their 1977 Additional Protocols as well as customary international law. Although this prohibition is well established today, there has been opposition to its adoption during the negotiations of these treaties driven by states’ reluctance to limit their means of warfare and to concede guarantees of protection to parties other than states. This evolution of the prohibition of collective punishment shines a light on current developments and the groups affected by collective punishment. The chapter concludes with a working definition of the term collective punishment as the punishment of a group as such for an act committed by one or some of its members for which the remaining members of the group do not bear individual responsibility.
