The laws on the conduct of war, a topic usually confined to arcane military journals, have marched into the public spotlight.
This prominence is because of US military intervention in response to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. In the early days of the Iraq war, Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental monitor of adherence to these laws, was swamped with hundreds of press calls; many focused on allied compliance. This was all the more remarkable given Iraq’s well-known record of deploying chemical weapons, torturing prisoners of war, and ruthlessly slaughtering civilians.
