One obstacle in the realisation of universal human rights in the world today is the continuing existence of armed conflict. It directly impinges on the most fundamental of rights – the right to life – as well as a host of others: for example, the right to family life, employment, housing, education, health, security, privacy, travel, and so on. While international human rights law (IHRL) is supposed to operate at all times, the reality is that during armed conflict it is often suspended/derogated from, or is simply inoperable in practice.

International humanitarian law (IHL), embodied in the main in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, is supposed to provide protections to civilians and captured or wounded combatants during wartime and, indeed, regulate war to make it more ‘humane’. However, enforcement may be limited by ambiguity or lack of knowledge about IHL, ambiguity about the distinction between non-combatants and combatants, troop indiscipline, emotions (the politics of the last atrocity) and, especially where non-state forces are involved, the lack of infrastructure for holding captured enemy combatants. Violation of human rights may also be viewed as a necessary means to winning a conflict – bombing populations into submission or torturing captives for information (Amnesty, 2014, 2017; Cobain, 2012, 2016). This is all compounded by the fact that no state and few non-state groups want to admit that they, or their allies’ combatants, violate human rights. This has had profound implications for the enforcement of IHRL/IHL.

The human rights mechanisms created since the end of World War II have also faced challenges from changing forms of armed conflict in the world. Most armed conflicts up until then had been between states. Since World War II the vast majority of conflicts have not been directly between states but have usually involved states and non-state actors (sometimes sponsored by or acting as surrogates for other states). Most wars have also been fought in the Global South: in Africa, Asia and Latin America, former colonies of Western European powers. Most conflicts have been influenced by colonialism, or the ongoing neo-colonial control of the resources and destinies of the vast majority of the population of the world by rich and powerful states, or by the geo-political interests of competing world powers.