Since construction started on the West Bank Barrier, what has been the impact of the Israeli occupation on the lives of ordinary Palestinians? Families from Salfit and Hebron talk about the trauma of living with military operations, being denied access to their land and facing constant restrictions on every aspect of life.

The current legal regime relative to occupation is no longer based solely on customary law and treaty-based law as set forth in the law of The Hague and the law of Geneva. The article explores how this regime has undergone a thorough change with the progressive recognition of the applicability of human rights law to the situations that it governs. The author examines the interrelation of international humanitarian law and human rights at the level of their individual rules, and considers whether the rules of international humanitarian law are confirmed, complemented, relativized or even contradicted by those deriving from human rights.

This article outlines the debate on the general relationship between the law of armed conflicts and human rights and examines particularly the applicability of human rights during military occupation. Complementarity and compatibility should be evaluated case by case, on the basis of the rules making up each of these regimes and any exceptions that these rules contain. The different interests and values at stake – the interests of the occupying forces and those of the civilian population, the protection of human rights and the derogations necessary to maintain order – reveal many grey areas that still exist in the interaction between human rights law and the law of military occupation.

The commentary to the procedural principles and safeguards outlined in this text mentions the different legal sources governing deprivation of liberty for security reasons in international armed conflicts, non-international armed conflicts and other situations of violence.

The armed hostilities in Iraq throughout the last almost two years have raised numerous questions from the perspective of international humanitarian law. This article aims at addressing some of them. The focus will be on identifying the applicable law throughout the various stages of the hostilities and various problems that entail its practical application.

Statement by Mr. Jacques Forster, Vice-President of the ICRC, United Nations Security Council, 5319th meeting, New York, 9 December 2005

Meeting of experts, Geneva, 27-29 October 1998. Statement by Yves Sandoz, Head of the delegation

Meeting of Experts, Geneva, 27 - 29 October 1998. Report by the International Committee of the Red Cross

Extract from "Basic rules of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols"