ABSTRACT
The principal object of international humanitarian law is the regulation of the relationship between a government and the persons under its jurisdiction, with the purpose of promoting and protecting human dignity in all its various aspects. According to a traditional view, human rights treaties are meant to find implementation and application only within the boundaries of a state's own territory and in peacetime, with their application excluded in the context of armed conflict. Article 2(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which determines the geographical reach of this treaty, prescribes a state to respect and ensure the rights of all individuals “within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction.” Besides the geographical scope, the temporal scope of application of international human rights law (IHRL) has also been interpreted in expansive terms. One of the main reasons why IHRL has increasingly been invoked in relation to armed conflict is that it provides remedies against violations.
