It may come as a surprise to many that the international community through the mechanisms and methods of international law should seek to involve itself in the techniques of war-making to the extent that it does. We all accept that international law is deeply concerned with the prevention of the use of armed force and most people are aware, if in a rudimentary fashion, of the categories of aggression, self-defence, use of force to protect nationals and so forth. It would be a cause of great amazement should the rules and techniques of international law not be heavily engaged in constraining as far as possible the impulses of states to resort to the use of force. It is rather different to find international law actually descending to the battlefield, tacitly acknowledging its own failures, and attempting to pontificate on the types of weapons to be used in the destruction of life and property. Or is it? The same general concerns that impel international law to restrain states from using violence against each other are also operative when one considers the methods of warfare, despite the irony.
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Malcolm Shaw (1983) studied this question.