Practice Relating to Rule 147. Reprisals against Protected Objects
Switzerland’s Basic Military Manual (1987), in the part dealing with “Hostilities and their limits” and, more specifically, in a provision regarding the prohibition of the taking of reprisals against the civilian population, refers,
inter alia, to Article 54 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I.
The manual further provides: “Objects vital to the civilian population, such as drinking water, foodstuffs, crops and livestock as well as agricultural areas, must not … be made the object of reprisals.”