RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Medical immunity, international law and just war theory
JF Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps
JO J R Army Med Corps
FD British Medical Journal Publishing Group
SP 256
OP 265
DO 10.1136/jramc-2018-001020
VO 165
IS 4
A1 Allhoff, Fritz
A1 Potts, K
YR 2019
UL http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/content/165/4/256.abstract
AB Under customary international law, the First Geneva Convention and Additional Protocol I, medical personnel are protected against intentional attack. In § 1 of this paper, we survey these legal norms and situate them within the broader international humanitarian law framework. In § 2, we explore the historical and philosophical basis of medical immunity, both of which have been underexplored in the academic literature. In § 3, we analyse these norms as applied to an attack in Afghanistan (2015) by the United States; the United States was attempting to target a Taliban command-and-control centre but inadvertently destroyed a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital instead, killing 42 people. In § 4, we consider forfeiture of medical immunity and, more sceptically, whether supreme emergency could justify infringement of non-forfeited protected status.