Explore – Research, think, do
Exploration 3 – ‘Orangetown’ activity
Step 1

Discuss the adage ‘All’s fair in love and war’. Are students familiar with it? In what
context is it usually said – as a joke, or does it have a serious side? What does it
mean?
 Do the students agree that, in war, anyone and anything is fair game? Isn’t that
what the news footage from Syrian cities like Homs and Aleppo show us –
unrestrained unlimited warfare?
 But, having looked at Starter Reading – The Basic IHL Principles, we learn (Pt 2 in
particular) that parties do not have free rein in what they do in war and how they
fight.
 Debate the concept that, even in armed conflict, there are laws and there are limits.
What have they seen of ‘total war’?
Where/when have they heard of restraint?
Compliance with the law is much harder to pinpoint. Search for constructive positive
examples of each of the four Geneva Conventions, and examples of humanity even
from contemporary conflicts such as those in Afghanistan, Syria and Israel and the
Occupied Territories.
© ICRC
The ICRC website/photograph collection may help students to identify and
Handy tip:
highlight some of the ‘good’ that can and does occur, even though it is rarely reported in
the news.
For example, this series of three photos shows the ICRC negotiating for the
evacuation of 25 wounded and children from war-torn Dammaj, Yemen.
They are
transported first by road, then to waiting helicopters (supplied by the national army) and
airlifted to hospital for treatment.
Step 2
Before turning to the text of an IHL treaty (likely the students’ first look at such an
international legal document) ensure that students have an overall understanding of:

What the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols are.

The core steps by which such a treaty is drafted, accepted as an international legal
treaty, and how each nation must take its own steps to make the treaty part of its own
national law (In Australia, this process is called ratification).

How widely they have been agreed to by the international community
Step 3

Read some law! Allow students time to peruse the layout of Additional Protocol 1 and
to delve into some of the key articles of the text. The Additional Protocols of 1977 can
be
accessed:
1977.htm
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/additional-protocols-

To open discussion about targeting/protection of military/civilian sites, we suggest a
focus on the following references. Senior students, or those in Legal Studies classes,
may become quite fascinated with the provisions and interpreting what they mean in
the reality of combat.
More junior students, or say those in World War 2 History
classes, may simply need to grasp that a bomb may legitimately strike a military depot
but not a kindergarten.
Distinction
 Additional Protocol 1
Art 48

Additional Protocol 1
Art 51/4 (a-c)

Additional Protocol 1
Art 54/2

Additional Protocol 1 Art 35/3
Military necessity

Additional Protocol 1
Art 52/2
Proportionality

Additional Protocol 1
Art 51/5 (b)

Articles 51/7, 52/3, 55/1 and 57/2 and 3 are also particularly relevant.
Step 4

Introduce the map of Orangetown and the tasks.
You are a Blueland airforce commander. Your country has declared war on its
neighbour, Orangeland, to the south. Your military mission is to take control of the
regional capital, Orangetown.
Blueland has ratified the Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocols, and as an
individual you take your obligations under IHL particularly seriously.
Before beginning to plan your operational strategy, you ask for the advice of a Legal
Officer and remind yourself of the law. In particular, you want to weigh up the IHL
issues surrounding the:

Primary school and the weapons store

Army base and the town water tank
Considering the Blueland government’s orders are that you do everything feasible to
protect the Orangetown population, which other sites in Orangetown are of concern to
you?

As Blueland commander how might you meet your military aims whilst applying the
laws of armed conflict?

What is ‘collateral damage’? To what extent does the law seem to allow for it? Find
evidence for your answer in the text of Additional Protocol.
Step 5
Prompt students to think about weapons of war. Are there rules for those too?
 From Pt 5 of Basic IHL Principles, or Additional Protocol 1, 35/2, discuss the
following.
 In war, when death, loss, destruction and suffering are inevitable, what can it possibly
mean to ban ‘unnecessary suffering’? Untangle what the group thinks this clause is
about – and re-write it in plain English.

As a group, make a list of the weapons the use of which you think would cross the
‘unnecessary suffering’ line – and which therefore actually have been banned by
the international community.
The images on PPT Slide 15 gives clues.
Key conclusion

The point is clear. Nuclear weapons breach core IHL principles more obviously,
more severely than almost any other (reinforced in Slides 17- 21), yet even in the
comparative ‘rush’ of treaties/prohibitions since the 1990s, a ban on nuclear
weapons stands as the biggest gap yet to be filled.
Step 6

Return to slides about the Red Cross Movement campaign to ban the use of nuclear
weapons (nos. 23-26) and move on to Exploration 4.