La Cour internationale de justice et la problématique des droits de l'homme

B- Contents of the elementary considerations

In the advisory opinion of July 8, 1996, the Court recalls that the control of the military operations is subjected to a whole of legal regulations limiting in particular the choice for the belligerents the means of harming the enemy. Is proscribed in particular, the use of the weapons which would be appropriate so that the Court does not call any more them « basic general principles of the humane right », as in the species 1986, but, in a similar way, « cardinal principles  contents in the texts forming fabrics of the humane right ». It identifies these principles, this time independently of Convention VIII of The Hague as in 1949, or article 3 commun run with four Conventions of Geneva of 1949, as in 1986, but by reference to the Declaration of Petersbourg Saint of 1868 and to the additional Payment with Convention VI of The Hague of 1907, concerning the laws and habits of the war on ground^85(*).

The Court, this time Ci, identifies « cardinal principles » like consistent in protection of the population and the goods of civil nature and in prohibition to cause superfluous evils with the combatants. However, it does not leave it there. As it had done into 1986 in connection with the four Conventions of Geneva from which it recalled that the denunciation did not cause to draw aside the obligations under the terms of the principles of the law of nations such as they result from the uses established between civilized nations, of the laws of humanity and of the requirements of the public conscience, the Court connects in 1996 them « cardinal principles » under the clause of Martens. It is in this context particularly emphatic that one will find them « considerations », but this time in the following terms : « it is undoubtedly because a great number of rules of the humane right applicable in the wars are so fundamental for the respect for human dignity and elementary considerations of humanity (...) that Convention IV of The Hague and Conventions of Geneva profited from a broad adhesion of the States »^86(*).

* ⁸⁵CIJ, admissibility of the use or the threat of the nuclear weapons, advisory opinion of July 8, 1996, Rec., 1996, §77.

* ⁸⁶ Ibidem, p. 26.