Note on the Law and Legal Terms
By Alan Dorsey

The terms international humanitarian law, or IHL, laws of war, laws of armed conflict, rules of war, etc., are, generally speaking, synonymous and interchangeable. Lawyers, human rights groups, relief organizations, the ICRC, and most States favor international humanitarian law, whereas militaries typically prefer the term laws of war, or some variation. In this book, we tend toward international humanitarian law, or IHL, except where an author has explicitly chosen a different usage.

International law is a complex mix of multilateral treaties, customary law, State practice, UN Security Council resolutions, judicial decisions, the work of advisory commissions and legal experts, and “general principles of law.” In the simplest formulation, it might be said that the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, and the two Additional Protocols of 1977, form the heart of IHL and are the most frequently cited sources. The following list contains the major written sources of IHL but is not intended to be exhaustive.