Normative demarcations of the right to life in a globalized world: Conflicts between Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law as markers

Dana Schmalz

doi:10.5771/2193-7869-2016-3-234

Contents
- Chapter Expand | CollapseAuthorsPage
- 171–171 Titelei/Inhaltsverzeichnis 171–171
- 172–172 AutorInnen 172–172
- 173–174 Editorial David Roth-Isigkeit David Roth-Isigkeit 173–174
- 175–186 The Grammar(s) of Global Law David Roth-Isigkeit David Roth-Isigkeit 175–186
- 187–216 Narratives in International Law Julia Otten Julia Otten 187–216
- 217–233 Global Constitutionalism as a Grammar of Global Law? Matej Avbelj Matej Avbelj 217–233
- 234–253 Normative demarcations of the right to life in a globalized world: Conflicts between Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law as markers Dana Schmalz Dana Schmalz 234–253
- 254–279 Der UNO-Sicherheitsrat und die Universalgrammatik des Völkerrechts – Zur Interpretation von Sicherheitsratsresolutionen Thomas Kleinlein Thomas Kleinlein 254–279
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KritV Kritische Vierteljahresschrift für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft , page 234 - 253

Normative demarcations of the right to life in a globalized world: Conflicts between Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law as markers

Autoren

Dana Schmalz

DOI
- doi.org/10.5771/2193-7869-2016-3-234
- ISSN: 2193-7869
- ISSN online: 2193-7869
Abstract

The relationship between international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) has occupied legal scholarship extensively over the last decades. It is undisputed today that IHRL also applies in situations of armed conflict, and that norms of the two regimes are regularly intertwined. At the same time, the regimes are characterized by different logics, which become most apparent with regard to the protection of the right to life, or the permissibility to kill a person. In this paper, I will argue that the concrete lines of conflict between IHL and IHRL in that regard can be viewed as markers for fundamental normative questions arising in a changing global political framework. IHL draws on the order of states as decisive entities of rights and liabilities, whereas IHRL takes humanity as reference point. On that basis, their relationship does not appear as straightforward convergence but rather as a dialectical process that highlights their respective limitations. The conflicts regarding the protection of a right to life in that sense are indicative of a more general uncertainty about the appropriate normative grammar today: They point to instances, in which the state-centric framework has become inadequate. But they equally underline dangers of the language of universal human rights, the scope and content of which will depend on particular conceptions about the boundaries of political community.
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