Germany
Practice Relating to Rule 7. The Principle of Distinction between Civilian Objects and Military Objectives
Germany’s Military Manual (1992) provides: “It is particularly prohibited to employ means or methods which are intended or of a nature … to injure military objectives, civilians, or civilian objects without distinction.”
In 1983, in a statement before the Lower House of Parliament, a German Minister of State pointed out that the principle of distinction between civilian objects and military objectives was one of the five basic principles of the law of armed conflict and that it applied equally to the attacker and the attacked.
In an explanatory memorandum submitted to the German Parliament in 1990 in the context of the ratification procedure of the 1977 Additional Protocols, the German Government expressed the opinion that the principle of distinction between civilian objects and military targets enshrined in Article 48 of Additional Protocol I was a well-established rule of customary law, binding on all States.
Germany’s Military Manual (1992) provides: “Attacks, i.e. any acts of violence against the adversary, whether in offence or in defence …, shall be limited exclusively to military objectives.”
Germany’s Soldiers’ Manual (2006) states: “Combat operations may only be directed against the armed forces of the enemy and other military objectives, not however against the civilian population or civilian objects.”
In 2009, in reply to a Minor Interpellation in the Bundestag (Lower House of Parliament) titled “Investigation of serious violations of international humanitarian law in the recent Gaza war”, Germany’s Federal Government wrote:
17. Given that armed Palestinian groups and their legitimate military objectives are often placed in such populated areas, does the Federal Government consider that it can be justified under international law to subject these populated areas to massive fire even if it can be expected that a large number of injuries and deaths will be caused and will mostly affect the civilian population?
If so, how does the Federal Government justify that such a use of weapons complies with international law?
Under international humanitarian law, attacks must be limited to military objectives.
Germany’s Military Manual (1992) provides that it is prohibited “to make civilian objects the object of attack”.
Germany’s Soldiers’ Manual (2006) states: “Combat operations may only be directed against the armed forces of the enemy and other military objectives, not however against the civilian population or civilian objects.”
Germany’s Law Introducing the International Crimes Code (2002) punishes anyone who, in connection with an international or a non-international armed conflict, “directs an attack by military means against civilian objects, so long as these objects are protected as such by international humanitarian law”.
In 1993, the German Chancellor strongly criticized the “brutal siege and the shelling of the Muslim town of Srebrenica”.
Germany’s Military Manual (1992) provides that enemy aircraft used exclusively for the transport of civilians may neither be attacked nor seized. Their protection ends
if such [aircraft] do not comply with conditions lawfully imposed upon them, if they abuse their mission or are engaged in any other activity bringing them under the definition of a military objective … Such aircraft may be requested to land on ground or water to be searched.