Commitment to Civilians: Precedent for a Political Declaration on Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas
To inform the content of a new political declaration, Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic have conducted a study of existing declarations. Focusing on political declarations related to the conduct and consequences of armed conflict (see appendix for a complete list), they assessed the structure and components of these documents. This report identifies seven key components that are common to armed conflict-related political declarations: an introduction identifying the problem of concern and six categories of commitments. This report examines each of these components. It describes what the component entails; lays out the precedent, found in existing conflict-related declarations, for including it; discusses how that component could be applied in the forthcoming political declaration on the use of EWIPA; and explains the value of the component in bolstering political declarations and states’ movement toward common goals.
