Afternoon Rapporteur Session Two

• Citation: Vol. 45 No. 3
• Publication year: 2017
• topic: Military Law

AFTERNOON RAPPORTEUR SESSION TWO

Student Rapporteurs: Dana Lohrberg^* & Ethan Morris^**

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I. WEAPONRY FOR MEDICAL PERSONNEL

The Session began by discussing concerns surrounding loss of protection for medical personnel. Currently, medical personnel lose formal protected status based on the quality and quantity of arms that medical personnel use.¹ One panelist illustrated this concern with the example of a medical vehicle facing conflict with a Toyota truck equipped with a mounted 50-caliber gun. The panelist understood the commentaries to require the medical vehicle to counter the Toyota truck with light arms. The panelist noted that, for purposes of defense, a "light" weapon would not provide sufficient defense against a 50-caliber mounted gun, but use of a "heavy" weapon would cause medical personnel to lose protection. Without more flexible classifications of weaponry relating to protection, medical personnel are faced with a difficult choice—either use the weapon and lose protection or face enemy combatants with no method of defense. As a possible solution, panelists advocated for a system where loss of protection is not based on whether the arms are "heavy" or "light," but whether the medical personnel are committing "acts hostile to the enemy" with such arms. This distinction would allow for the use of all weapons available to medical personnel while also ensuring that medical personnel cannot go beyond the defensive measures allowed in the commentaries.

II. LOCATION OF HOSPITALS

A large portion of the panel was devoted to discussing hospitals as military objects when they are located near military bases. The current

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commentaries take the position that such placement of a hospital warrants loss of protection.² However they also express the view that damage to hospitals should be...