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Dans le cadre de ses travaux relatifs à la fragmentation du droit international et, en particulier, à l'existence de régimes juridiques « autonomes » ou « spéciaux », la Commission du droit international a identifié le droit international humanitaire comme l'un des exemples de régime qui se distinguerait en droit international par sa spécificité fonctionnelle. L'objectif du présent ouvrage est notamment de fournir des éclaircissements sur la signification de cette qualification.Après avoir circonscrit les contours de la notion de régime spécial en droit international, l'ouvrage s'interroge sur les éventuelles spécificités du droit international humanitaire tant par rapport au « système général », c'est-à-dire aux règles secondaires du droit international général, que par rapport à d'autres « sous-systèmes », tels que le droit international pénal, les droits de l'homme ou le droit international de l'environnement. Cette analyse entend cerner au mieux les rapports existant entre le droit international humanitaire et les autres systèmes - général ou spéciaux - de droit international et se prononcer ainsi sur la question sous-jacente de l' «autonomisation» de ce droit. Elle montre que, loin de produire une «cacophonie» au sein de l'ordre juridique international, cet enchevêtrement de différents systèmes relevant de cet ordre s'apparente le plus souvent à une «polyphonie» harmonieuse.

AbstractThe protection of the environment during warfare attracted significant attention in the 1990s, especially after the 1990–91 Gulf War. It became clear at that time that the few rules provided by international humanitarian law (IHL) aimed specifically at protecting the environment were insufficient. Various studies have since been undertaken with the aim of strengthening that protection from an IHL perspective. It is only recently that scholars and institutions like the International Law Commission have started to reflect on how to better protect the environment in armed conflict through the lens of another branch of international law, namely, international environmental law (IEL). Such an approach has involved examining the interplay between IHL and IEL, and scholars have subsequently proposed and then elaborated on frameworks in that respect. This paper intends to identify common trends of those frameworks and to critically appraise them, with the aim of providing a suitable approach to the interplay between IHL and IEL.

Abstract
Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia on 24 February 2022, Western states have provided significant military support to the Ukrainian armed forces, through the supply of arms or intelligence. This article enquires whether those states need any legal justification to make such support lawful under international law and, more particularly, under the law on the use of force, the law of neutrality and the regulation of arms transfers. It concludes that such justification might be required in certain circumstances and that the supporting states' narrative, namely helping Ukraine to exercise its right of self-defence in response to a blatant armed attack, might act as a valid justification, except with respect to certain regulations on arms transfer.

AbstractNowadays, human rights law significantly impacts the regulation of armed conflict through two main processes: the "interpretation process", whereby international humanitarian law is interpreted in light of human rights law's norms or concepts, and the "application process", whereby human rights law applies in armed conflict alongside international humanitarian law. These processes raise complex problems with respect to the interplay between the two branches of international law. The aim of this paper is to propose an elaborated theoretical framework, based on legal theories of normative coherence, in order to address that interplay and to overcome the shortcomings of the formal mechanisms usually referred to in practice and legal scholarship. It is demonstrated that such a coherency-based approach recommends adapting the outcomes of the interpretation and application processes, either by modulating or displacing the inappropriate norm or regime, in light of substantial considerations.

Recent foreign military interventions against international terrorism raise several questions with respect to international humanitarian law. Most of them concern the qualification of the hostilities between the intervening States and the terrorist groups and the identification of the rules of international humanitarian law applicable to those hostilities. Questions also arise about the geographical scope of application of such rules and the nature of the criminal prosecutions with respect to the people involved in the activities of the terrorist groups abroad. Different solutions may be given to answer those questions. The proposed approaches are intended to be consistent and are therefore mainly based on logic. Some of them imply a limited extension of international humanitarian law, in particular of the law of non-international armed conflict, while the other reject the applicability of some regulation considered as inappropriate.

Al-Qaida et le groupe autoproclamé «État islamique » sont actuellement les deux principales organisations terroristes qui, avec les entités qui leur sont affiliés, sont à l'origine de l'activité terroriste internationale, reconnue comme telle par l'ensemble des États. De nombreuses interventions militaires étrangères ont été récemment entreprises contre ces organisations. La plupart d'entre elles sont fondées sur un argument juridique peu contesté en droit international, à savoir le consentement, exprès ou implicite, de l'État sur le territoire duquel l'intervention a lieu. L'enseignement qui se dégage de telles interventions paraît en ligne avec la position majoritairement soutenue en doctrine quant à l'identification de l'autorité habilitée à consentir à un emploi de la force et confirme l'interdiction alléguée de l'intervention dans les guerres civiles, tout en montrant que cette interdiction ne s'applique pas à leur sujet. Certaines interventions, en l'occurrence celles menées en Syrie, ont par contre été justifiées sur la base de l'argument, plus controversé, de la légitime défense. Ces interventions s'inscrivent néanmoins dans la lignée des précédents, désormais significatifs, dans lesquels le droit de légitime défense a été invoqué pour riposter à une agression armée non étatique. Elles constituent une pratique supplémentaire qui tend à la reconnaissance d'un tel droit. Elles n'en soulèvent pas moins quelques difficultés, particulièrement en ce qui concerne la mise en oeuvre de certains aspects de l'exigence de nécessité qui conditionne le déclenchement de ce droit.

Abstract
The principle of prohibiting forced labour exists in both treaty and customary international law. However, there are limits to this prohibition, in that certain types of forced labour are actually permitted; this is the case for forced labour performed by prisoners of war (PoWs). This paper examines the legal regime applicable to such labour. It starts by setting out the current rules, following a brief historical review. It then explains the shortcomings of those rules, which are open to abuse and are not focused exclusively on the rights and interests of the PoWs, before proposing two possible ways of improving the situation by means of a systemic approach. The first is based on international humanitarian law itself, while the second is based on the complementary relationship between that body of law and international human rights law. Such improvements would give PoWs the right to perform any available work while continuing to require them to carry out work exclusively dedicated to running the PoW camp.