Little attention is paid to the obligation of ‘care’ in Article 55(1) of Additional Protocol I. Beyond a general principle of upholding environmental value in times of armed conflict, what is the scope and content of the obligation? If it is worthless, what makes it so? Since the care provision includes the same high threshold of harm found elsewhere in the environmental provisions, has this stumbling block now been removed by state practice? Rule 44 of the Customary Law Study might appear to suggest that this is so, or does it? Ultimately then, is the care obligation worth caring about?

Criticized by many as the new “weapon of mass destruction,” lauded by some as the “weapon of choice in combat,” the use of depleted uranium ammunition in warfare raises many legal questions. Designed as a point weapon to penetrate armoured targets, scientific studies prove that depleted uranium has both chemically and radioactively toxic characteristics. Clearly, every weapon of war will have some affect on human health and the environment, but the laws of armed conflict have evolved to place limits on the level of harm viewed as permissible and legal. Does this “weapon of choice,” therefore, breach the international laws of armed conflict?

Although the subject of media frenzy in the immediate aftermath of the 1999 Kosovo conflict, the use of depleted uranium ammunition in Iraq 2003 raised little media attention. How could the use of such a controversial weapon in 1991 go largely unnoticed just four years later? Does this lack of global condemnation necessarily lead to the conclusion that the “dictates of the public conscience” have evolved in regard to the use of this previously controversial weapon of war? This article seeks to analyze the legality of the use of depleted uranium ammunition — the main question being whether the existing laws of armed conflict are already sufficient to address any human and environmental concerns.

Over the past century, the laws of armed conflict have limited or prohibited the use of a number of weapons, principally due to their cruel effects or indiscriminate nature. Among the examples are chemical and biological weapons, anti-personnel mines, and blinding laser weapons. In recent years, one of the most controversial armaments used by states has been the cluster bomb. Cluster weapons are inexpensively produced area weapons with a high propensity for failure. The source of constant condemnation since the Vietnam conflict, the legality of cluster weapons remains highly questionable. With such weapons, the question is not so much whether there is a need to create new instruments of limitation, or indeed prohibition, but whether the existing laws of armed conflict are already sufficient to address any human and environmental concerns.