Nicola Perugini

Human Shields, Sovereign Power, and the Evisceration of the Civilian

Human shields were prominent in the 2016 military campaign seeking to recapture Mosul from the hands of ISIS militants. On October 24, 2016, Pope Francis expressed his concern over the use of over two hundred boys and men as human shields in the Iraqi city. In an election rally the following day, Donald Trump decried the enemys use of “human shields all over the place,” while the New York Times reported that the Islamic State is driving hundreds of civilians into Mosul, using them as human shields. A few days later, the United Nations disseminated a press release, warning that ISIS militants are using “tens of thousands” as human shields, thus casting massive numbers of Iraqi civilians as weapons of war.

Introduction to Symposium on Critical Perspectives on Human Shields

This symposium is dedicated to the legal challenges posed by human shielding, a growing phenomenon intricately linked to the increasing “weaponization” of human bodies in contemporary warfare.1 Human shielding refers to the deployment of civilians in order to deter attacks on combatants or military sites as well as their transformation into a technology of warfare. The dramatic increase of urban warfare has meant that civilians inevitably occupy the front lines, blurring the distinction between civilians and combatants. This, in turn, raises serious ethical and legal dilemmas relating to the use of violence. FromGaza City throughMosul in Iraq to Sri Lanka, accusations that combatants are using human shields as an instrument of protection, coercion, or deterrence havemultiplied in the past few of years. The word shield, in relation to human shield issues, first appears in the 1977 Additional Protocol I to theGeneva Conventions. Article 51(7) both prohibits the use of human shields and reiterates that it is legitimate for militaries to attack areas protected by human shields, provided that they abide by the principles of proportionality and military necessity.