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Reprisal
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Reprisal
A reprisal is a limited and deliberate violation of international law to punish another sovereign state that has already broken them. Since the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (AP 1), reprisals in the laws of war are extremely limited, as they commonly breach the rights of non-combatants.
The word came from French, where it originally meant "act of taking back", for example, raiding back the equivalent of cattle lost to an enemy raid.
Reprisals refer to acts which are illegal if taken alone, but become legal when adopted by one state in retaliation for the commission of an earlier illegal act by another state. ICRC’s Database of Customary International Humanitarian Law states in Rule 145: "Where not prohibited by international law, belligerent reprisals are subject to stringent conditions." "Counter-reprisals" are generally not allowed.
An example of reprisal is the Naulila dispute between Portugal and Germany in October 1914, when they were on opposite sides of the World War I chasm. After three Germans were mistakenly killed in Naulila on the border of the then-Portuguese colony of Angola (in a manner that did not violate international law), Germany carried out a military raid on Naulila, destroying property in retaliation. A claim for compensation was brought by Portugal. The tribunal emphasized that before reprisals could be legally undertaken, a number of conditions had to be satisfied:
The German claim that it had acted lawfully was rejected on all three grounds.
During the Irish War of Independence, reprisals were authorized by British authorities in areas of Ireland that were under martial law. From December 1920 until June 1921 approximately 150 official reprisals were carried out. In December 1920, Commander-in-Chief, Ireland Nevil Macready informed the Lloyd George ministry that military governors in areas under martial law had been authorized to conduct reprisals in response to attacks on local security forces, under these conditions:
Punishments will only be carried out on the authority of the Infantry Brigadier, who before taking action will satisfy himself that the people concerned were, owing to their proximity to the outrage or their known political tendencies, implicated in the outrage, and will give specific instructions in writing, or by telegram to the officer detailed to carry out the operation.
Bennett writes that the events of World War II can be seen through either the prism of negative reciprocity or the prism of reprisal. If the latter, "the rules also required that reprisals be used ‘only as an unavoidable last resort to induce the enemy to desist from illegitimate practices’".
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Reprisal AI simulator
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Reprisal
A reprisal is a limited and deliberate violation of international law to punish another sovereign state that has already broken them. Since the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (AP 1), reprisals in the laws of war are extremely limited, as they commonly breach the rights of non-combatants.
The word came from French, where it originally meant "act of taking back", for example, raiding back the equivalent of cattle lost to an enemy raid.
Reprisals refer to acts which are illegal if taken alone, but become legal when adopted by one state in retaliation for the commission of an earlier illegal act by another state. ICRC’s Database of Customary International Humanitarian Law states in Rule 145: "Where not prohibited by international law, belligerent reprisals are subject to stringent conditions." "Counter-reprisals" are generally not allowed.
An example of reprisal is the Naulila dispute between Portugal and Germany in October 1914, when they were on opposite sides of the World War I chasm. After three Germans were mistakenly killed in Naulila on the border of the then-Portuguese colony of Angola (in a manner that did not violate international law), Germany carried out a military raid on Naulila, destroying property in retaliation. A claim for compensation was brought by Portugal. The tribunal emphasized that before reprisals could be legally undertaken, a number of conditions had to be satisfied:
The German claim that it had acted lawfully was rejected on all three grounds.
During the Irish War of Independence, reprisals were authorized by British authorities in areas of Ireland that were under martial law. From December 1920 until June 1921 approximately 150 official reprisals were carried out. In December 1920, Commander-in-Chief, Ireland Nevil Macready informed the Lloyd George ministry that military governors in areas under martial law had been authorized to conduct reprisals in response to attacks on local security forces, under these conditions:
Punishments will only be carried out on the authority of the Infantry Brigadier, who before taking action will satisfy himself that the people concerned were, owing to their proximity to the outrage or their known political tendencies, implicated in the outrage, and will give specific instructions in writing, or by telegram to the officer detailed to carry out the operation.
Bennett writes that the events of World War II can be seen through either the prism of negative reciprocity or the prism of reprisal. If the latter, "the rules also required that reprisals be used ‘only as an unavoidable last resort to induce the enemy to desist from illegitimate practices’".