IHL prohibits the employment of means or methods of warfare of a nature to cause  superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering not only to the civilian population, but also of combatants, mainly if they uselessly aggravate the suffering once they will be hors the combat. This rule reflects an attempt to strike a balance between the competing aims of humanity and military necessity, and the protection resulting from its application, strictly speaking, focusses on the effect of weapons on combatants (as, in principle, causing suffering and injury to civilians is prohibited). Weapons which would inevitably cause serious permanent disability, as well as those that render death inevitable are affected by the prohibition. Restrictions and prohibitions on the use of specific weapons such as laser weapons, incendiary weapons and dum-dum bullets are a direct result of the application of the rule.

See Means of warfare; Weapons; Conventional weapons; Conduct of hostilities; Dum-dum bullets; Laser weapons; Incendiary weapons; Mines; Cluster munitions; Superfluous injury and Unnecessary Suffering;

 OUTLINE

Chapter 9, III. 1. The basic rule: Art. 35 of PI

 LEGAL SOURCES

HR, 23(e)

PI, 35/2

CIHL, 70

 CASES

ICJ, Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion (Para. 78), p. 776

Iran, Victim of Cyber warfare

United States, Memorandum of Law: The Use of Lasers as Anti-Personnel Weapons (Paras. 4 and 8)

Israel/Lebanon/Hezbollah, Conflict in 2006 (Part I, Paras. 249-263)

United States, Surrendering in the Persian Gulf War

Afghanistan, Assesment of ISAF Strategy

Afghanistan, Code of Conduct of the Mujahideen (Art.41)

ECHR, Isayeva v. Russia (Paras. 19, 33, 165-167, 191-191)

Georgia/Russia, Human Rights Watch’s Report on the Conflict in South Ossetia (Paras. 8, 20-22, 28)

Georgia/Russia, Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in South Ossetia (Paras. 58-63)

Autonomous Weapon Systems

Libya, Use of cluster bombs

Afghanistan/US, 'Mother of all bombs'

BIBLIOGRAPHIC RESOURCES

AUBERT Maurice, “The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Problem of Excessively Injurious or Indiscriminate Weapons”, in IRRC, No. 279, November-December 1990, pp. 477-497.
 
BOUTRUCHE Théo, L’Interdiction des Maux Superflus : Contribution à l’Étude des Principes et Règles Relatifs aux Moyens et Méthodes de Guerre en Droit International Humanitaire, Geneva, Thesis, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Université de Genève, 2008, 559 pp.
 
BRETTON Philippe, “La Convention du 10 avril 1981 sur l’interdiction ou la limitation de certaines armes classiques qui peuvent être considérées comme produisant des effets traumatiques excessifs ou comme frappant sans discrimination”, in AFDI, 1981, pp. 127-146.
 
COUPLAND Robin M., “The SIrUS Project: Towards a Determination of Which Weapons Cause ‘Superfluous Injury or Unnecessary Suffering’”, Geneva, ICRC, 1997, 43 pp. ICRC, Special Issue on Means of Warfare, IRRC, Vol. 87, No. 859, 2005, 604 pp.
 
COWLING M.G., “The Relationship between Military Necessity and the Principle of Superfluous Injury and Unnecessary Suffering in the Law of Armed Conflict”, in South African Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 25, 2000, pp. 131-160.
 
MACLEOD Iain J. & ROGERS Anthony P.V., “The Use of White Phosphorus and the Law of War”, in YIHL, Vol. 10 (2007), 2009, pp. 75-97.
 
MEYROWITZ Henri, “The Principle of Superfluous Injury or Unnecessary Suffering: From the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868 to Additional Protocol I of 1977”, in IRRC, No. 299, October 1994, pp. 98-122.