The Impact of Structural Transformations in New Armed Conflicts on the Effectiveness of International Humanitarian Law

Abstract

Modern armed conflicts have revealed profound structural transformations, whether in terms of the actors involved, or in terms of techniques and technology in light of the global trend towards employing techniques and methods of artificial intelligence in the means and methods of its operation, and in particular the recent Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the Russian-Uranian war, or even the recent American-Iranian war around the Strait of Hormuz, as these conflicts truly constituted a challenge to international humanitarian law, as neither the Geneva Conventions of 1949 nor their Additional Protocols of 1949 These structural transformations took place in 1977, not only in terms of organization and the clarification of their legal status during the course of hostilities, as irregular armed groups and private security and military companies became the most important challenge facing the application of international humanitarian law. Rather, these entities began to violate international humanitarian law without accountability or oversight, for no other reason than because the conventions and rules of international humanitarian law did not take them, and the rapid technological boom that the weapons used in modern armed conflicts witnessed was almost completely dependent on artificial intelligence systems. Such as sensors, drones, and smart tracking truly represent a terrible structural transformation that requires a legal pause through which the international humanitarian law conventions are reviewed in line with what has been imposed by the reality of contemporary armed conflicts, and work is done to control some of the terms related to the application of international humanitarian law, such as armed forces, hostile party, direct participation, customary international humanitarian law, jus cogens and binding rules for all.....etc.