Argentina
Practice Relating to Rule 142. Instruction in International Humanitarian Law within Armed Forces
Argentina’s Navy Regulations (1986) state: “An adequate knowledge of the relevant rules of international law, as well as of relevant conventions, must be demanded at all levels.”
Argentina’s Law of War Manual (1989) states that its objectives include to:
1. Disseminate lawful methods and means of warfare.
2. Disseminate the rules regulating the conduct of the military forces in operation.
3. Disseminate the rules that the military forces must observe in their relations with the enemy populations and the occupied territories.
The manual also points out that the duty to disseminate the 1977 Additional Protocols and to train qualified persons applies already in peacetime.
Argentina’s National Committee on the Implementation of International Humanitarian Law (CADIH) (1994) was established by a national decree to undertake studies on the teaching and dissemination of the rules of IHL.
Article 10 of the Internal Rules of Procedure of the Argentine National Committee on the Implementation of International Humanitarian Law (CADIH) states: “The CADIH will establish its working methods with regard to legal measures of application and teaching and dissemination, in the civil and military fields respectively.”
In 1997, at the first meeting of the Argentine and Chilean national committees on the implementation of IHL, a legal adviser of the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Argentina recognized the importance of efforts made by States to disseminate IHL in peacetime and that persons be trained to apply the law in situations described in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Additional Protocols.
The Report on the Practice of Argentina contains, as annexes, documents which aim to provide teaching material for the armed forces in which rules of IHL have been incorporated.