A presentation by Ka Lok Yip, Hamad Bin Khalifa University. This event is part of the Fundamental Rights Research Colloquium under the "Human Rights in Times of War" cluster hosted by the Centre for Fundamental Rights.
In determining the right to life under international human rights law (IHRL) during the conduct of hostilities, the traditional approach defers to the relevant rules of international humanitarian law (IHL) as ‘lex specialis’, while the ‘normative’ approach adopts an open-ended ‘contextual application’ of ‘systemic integration’. Neither approach provides an account that speaks to the heart of the matter – the just assignment of legal responsibility for the deprivation of life in war-fighting, where ‘responsibility’ implies the correct location of a ‘cause’ that is answerable, or ‘able’ to provide a ‘response’, for such deprivation. The invocation of causality in the social world in turn requires an account of social ontology, the study of what exists in society to cause anything at all. As theory without practice is sterile while practice without theory is blind, this paper combines both by reconnecting the relevant norms under IHL and IHRL with different causes of deprivation of life in war-fighting. It further bridges theory and practice by demonstrating the proper use of the legal technique of systemic integration together with the ‘context’ prescribed under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The paper thus demystifies the right to life in hostilities theoretically, methodologically and practically.
Ka Lok Yip is Assistant Professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. She focuses her research on peace and conflict. She draws on a wide range of disciplines including international law, international relations, philosophy, psychology, and sociology to study the causes of armed conflicts and strategies for their management, resolution, and prevention. She has published extensively on issues related to peace and conflict and her recent monograph ‘The Use of Force against Individuals in War under International Law – a Social Ontological Approach’ won her the Francis Lieber Book Prize 2023. Ka Lok is admitted to the practice of law in England and Wales and Hong Kong.
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