Non-compliance with international humanitarian law

Despite the increasingly active efforts of international organizations in support of humanitarian initiatives, humanitarian abuses continue to increase at an alarming rate. While the United Nations has an excellent record of setting human rights standards through international covenants, the reluctance of the world community to provide the UN Centre for Human Rights with adequate resources to carry out its mandate is a major limitation for implementation. In many countries, non-compliance with humanitarian law, not the scope of the law, remains the crux of the problem.

Conflicts that are not of an international character pose especially difficult problems for enforcing humanitarian law, although the obligations of all combatants remain clear and unequivocal. Clear rules have not always translated into an equally clear acceptance of those rules.