France
Practice Relating to Rule 147. Reprisals against Protected Objects
Section B. Medical objects
France’s Disciplinary Regulations (1975), as amended, states: “By virtue of international conventions regularly ratified or approved: … it is prohibited [to soldiers in combat] … to take hostages, to engage in reprisals or collective punishments”.
France’s LOAC Manual (2001), in a chapter dealing with means and methods of warfare, states: “The law of armed conflict prohibits … the methods of warfare which consist in the recourse: … to reprisals against non-military objectives”.
The manual refers,
inter alia, to Article 46 of the 1949 Geneva Convention I, Article 47 of the 1949 Geneva Convention II and Article 20 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I and states: “Reprisals are prohibited against … the property particularly protected.”
At the CDDH, France made a proposal for a draft article on reprisals within the 1977 Additional Protocol I – which it later withdrew – which read,
inter alia, as follows: “3. … The measures may not involve any actions prohibited by the Geneva Conventions of 1949.”