Reports

“They Burn Through Everything”

The Human Cost of Incendiary Weapons and the Limits of International Law

The 45-page report, “‘They Burn Through Everything’: The Human Cost of Incendiary Weapons and the Limits of International Law,” details the immediate injuries and lasting physical, psychological, and socioeconomic harm of incendiary weapons, including white phosphorus, used by parties to recent conflicts. Countries should revisit and strengthen the international treaty governing these weapons, which burn people and set civilian structures and property on fire, Human Rights Watch concluded.

Search

Filter by

  • Interoperability and the Prohibition on Assistance

    Memorandum to Delegates of the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions

    A provision obliging states parties not to assist with prohibited acts is an accepted and essential part of a modern weapons treaty. The draft cluster munitions convention includes such a provision in Article 1(c).

  • Flooding South Lebanon

    Israel’s Use of Cluster Munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006

    In this 131-page report, Human Rights Watch found that Israel violated international humanitarian law in its indiscriminate and disproportionate cluster munition attacks on Lebanon. The report provides the most comprehensive and detailed account yet of the nature and impact of Israel’s use of cluster munitions.

  • Maiming the People

    Guerrilla Use of Antipersonnel Landmines and other Indiscriminate Weapons in Colombia

    This 34–page report is accompanied by an extensive photo and audio slideshow, and documents the impact on civilian survivors of guerrillas’ use of antipersonnel landmines in Colombia, as well as the difficulties that such survivors face in obtaining needed assistance from the government.

  • Indiscriminate Fire

    Palestinian Rocket Attacks on Israel and Israeli Artillery Shelling in the Gaza Strip

    This 146-page report finds that both Palestinian armed groups and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have shown insufficient regard for civilian life.

  • Survey of Cluster Munitions Produced and Stockpiled

    Briefing Paper Prepared for the ICRC Experts Meeting on Cluster Munitions

    This presentation is an introduction to the wide variety of cluster munitions currently available. The functional characteristics of these munitions as well as estimates of the numbers in current stockpiles are included in the presentation.

  • Survey of Cluster Munition Policy and Practice

    In armed conflicts around the world, cluster munitions are the category of weapons most in need of stronger national and international law to protect civilians from harm.

  • The “Hoax” That Wasn’t

    The July 23 Qana Ambulance Attack

    During the Israel-Hezbollah war, Israel was accused by Human Rights Watch and numerous local and international media outlets of attacking two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances in Qana on July 23, 2006.

  • Back in Business?

    U.S. Landmine Production and Exports

    The Bush administration appears poised to erase many of the positive steps the United States has taken in the past toward banning antipersonnel mines. The United States will decide in December 2005 whether it will begin the production of a new antipersonnel mine called Spider.

  • Worldwide Production and Export of Cluster Munitions

    The potential future dangers of widespread production and continued proliferation of cluster munitions demand urgent action to bring the humanitarian threat under control. At least seventy countries stockpile cluster munitions and the aggregate number of submunitions in these stockpiles is staggering.

  • Cluster Munitions and International Humanitarian Law

    The Need for Better Compliance and Stronger Rules

    The States Parties to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) have long recognized the dangers of cluster munitions. They first questioned the civilian harm these weapons cause at the Lucerne Conference in 1974 that eventually led to the CCW.

  • New U.S. Landmine Policy: Questions and Answers

    What is new about this policy? The Bush Administration’s policy on landmines, announced February 27, 2004, reverses many of the positive steps the U.S. has made over the past decade to eradicate antipersonnel mines. The use of self-destructing mines is permitted indefinitely without any geographic restrictions.