Why we need to challenge Russia’s human shields narrative

There has unfortunately been no real discussion of how, over the past decade, the human shield charge has been routinely used by Israel, Sri Lanka, Russia and other warring parties in numerous theatres of violence as a pre-emptive legal defence to justify the killing of civilians. In a similar vein, governments haven't said anything about this form of legal manipulation.

Decades of repetition, without any significant state or non-state challenge, nor any significant legal scholarship problematising the use of the human shielding accusation, have created a customary legal consensus whereby the human shields provisions can be used to justify the killing of civilians.

In order to contest the legal arguments that Russia invokes to justify the slaying of innocents, investigative agencies, humanitarian organisations, and human rights groups first need to confront the ease with which warring parties cast hundreds of thousands and at times even millions of civilians as human shields. They failed to do so in Mosul, Gaza, Aleppo, and Sana'a - perhaps in Kyiv they will finally debunk human shield accusations.