ABSTRACT
International humanitarian law is, broadly, that branch of public international law which seeks to moderate the conduct of armed conflict and to mitigate the suffering which it causes. The basic paradox was well stated by the great 19th-century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in Vom Kriege (On War') in remarking: If wars between civilized nations are far less cruel and destructive than wars between savages, the reason lies in the social conditions of the states themselves and in their relationships to one another. These are the forces that give rise to war; the same forces circumscribe and moderate it. There is manifestly a significant degree of convergence between the concerns of international humanitarian law and those of the international law of human rights. Ideas of humanitarian conduct in armed conflict have, contrary to popular opinion, a long if decidedly uneven history across a broad spectrum of societies and cultures.
