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TOURO INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW
NEGOTIATING A TRUCE BETWEEN HUMANITARIAN AND HUMAN RIGHTS
PRINCIPLES IN THE LAW OF ARMED CONFLICT
By Matt Meltzer
[T]he reconciliation of human rights law and the law of armed
conflict in a manner that provides a comparatively seamless and
coherent set of rules across the spectrum of violence may be the
challenge of the next generation of international lawyers.
- Charles Garraway
I. INTRODUCTION: Two LAWS, ONE NUCLEUS OF FACT
One of the core principles of classical mechanics is that two objects cannot occupy the
same place at the same time. Pioneered by Sir Isaac Newton, classical mechanics theorizes that
because every object occupies a single coordinate position in the universe, no two objects can
occupy the same space at the same time. Elegant as this is, the modem theory of quantum
mechanics has proved that there actually are particles that are so small and abstract that more
than one of them can occupy a single space at the same time. Stephen Hawking's work over the
past forty years has further shown that both classical mechanics and quantum mechanics describe
various facets of the physical universe with near perfect precision. However, that does not quell
the driving belief that at some apical level, one theory must prevail over the other. Both cannot
simultaneously be right, even though every indication from what we can observe and study
seems to say that they are.
The rivalry between international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights law
(IRL) in the regulation of armed conflict presents much the same quagmire. Both ostensibly
regulate how the use of force may be applied in an armed conflict, and commentators are split
about whether these bodies of law are separate and distinct or additive and complementary.2
However, the inexorable conclusion seems to be that both cannot regulate the same facts at the
same time: because one (IHL) permits a large amount of what the other (HRL) prohibits, one
*J.D., Vanderbilt Law School, 2012; B.A., Swarthmore College, 2006. Presently serving as a judicial law clerk for
the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. I am grateful to Samara M. Spence,
judicial law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, for her invaluable editorial and substantive
advice; to Professor Michael A. Newton of Vanderbilt Law School for introducing me to this fascinating field of law
and for his guidance on the early drafts of this paper; and to Professor Herma Hill Kay of the University of
California-Berkeley School of Law for providing me with a copy of her incisive monograph on the work of the late
Brainerd Currie. I am especially grateful to the late Gary L. Lancaster, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the
Western District of Pennsylvania, for giving my legal career its start and welcoming me with open arms to his
extended and esteemed family of law clerks.
1 Charles Garraway, The Changing Character of the Participants in War: Civilianization of Warfighting and the
Concept of Direct Participation in Hostilities, in 87 INTERNATIONAL LAW STUDIES: INTERNATIONAL LAW AND
THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF WAR 177, 184 (Raul A. Pete Pedrozo and Daria P. Wollschlaeger, eds. 2011)..
2 Geoffrey Corn, Mixing Apples and Hand Grenades: The Logical Limit ofApplying Human Rights Norms to Armed
Conflict, Int'l Humanitarian Legal Studies 1, 52 (2010).
Volume 16, No. 12013
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