[JURIST] Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic [academic website] called [report, PDF] Tuesday for a strict international law to end the use of incendiary weapons. The report was published in response to evidence of repeated incendiary weapon use in Ukraine and Syria. According to the report, the events in Ukraine and Syria over the past year show that the current law [text] prohibiting the weapons fails to protect civilians from incendiary attacks. The report highlights the extreme physical and emotional harm victims of incendiary weapons suffer. HRW will present [press release] the report to members of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) on November 12 at the UN Palais des Nations in Geneva. The researchers suggest that a comprehensive ban on incendiary weapons would be the most effective method to protect civilians, and at the very least, the researchers seek to encourage the CCW to strengthen the existing law which has not been changed in 30 years. The report specifically calls for a public condemnation of incendiary weapons, and points to the effect the political stigma had in Israel.

Israel’s extensive use of white phosphorus in Gaza in 2009 provoked international and domestic outrage. Israel appears to have responded to this pressure by amending its policy and practice, a change reflected most notably by the lack of any confirmed reports of the use of white phosphorus munitions by Israeli forces during their military operations in Gaza in 2014.

The CCW will decide which, if any, of these alternatives it will adopt to prevent continued use of incendiary weapons.

International concern over human rights violations in Ukraine and Syria continues to increase. The crisis in the Ukraine [JURIST news archive] has continued to escalate over recent months with no immediate end in sight. In early October the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] warned [JURIST report] that human rights abuses were still prevalent within the Ukraine. The insurgence of IS into Syria has led to serious human rights concerns, and UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic [official website] expressed grave concerns [JURIST report] last month about escalating violence against civilians. The growing concern presents an opportunity to strengthen laws prohibiting human rights violations committed by nations.