Reprisal principle

In this reprise of the book s contents I revisit the six principles of valid analytical measurement (VAM) so cleverly enunciated by the Laboratory of the Government Chemist. But first some words about clients and samples. 

Concerning the concept of reprisals, Oppenheim-Lauterpacht s definition has been most widely accepted.28 According to this definition, a wartime reprisal is the case if one warring party retaliates against another by means which are otherwise unlawful acts of warfare, and with which he wants to force his opponent, his opponent s branches and the members of the opposing armed forces to give up their illegal acts of war and to return to the principles of lawful warfare. 

Not only the number of victims, but also the circumstances of the reprisal s enforcement are determined by military necessity. Just as the ordering of a reprisal killing must be the last resort, the manner of its implementation must also be limited. Since a reprisal, in its individual case, suspends a norm of international law, its implementation must be limited and must observe the principles of humaneness as far as possible.114... 

If the foregoing considerations regarding reprisal law and requisitions had been consistently applied in the trials of the post-war years, then under the principle of equality under the law a large part of our prisoners of war would already have to have been acquitted. In the remaining cases, where such measures must be assumed to have been a violation of international law, one must consider the additional factor of higher orders. We shall investigate this in the following. 

The principle of reprisal - or the right to take action which would normally be considered illegal in order to demonstrate that illegal activities on the part of one s opponent will not be tolerated. 

The jus ad bellum principles apply to defensive action taken by States that Yoram Dinstein calls on-the-spot reactions, defensive armed reprisals, protection of nationals abroad, and extra-territorial law enforcement. See Dinstein 2011, para 644 para 656 para 676 and para 728, respectively. See also Kretzmer 2013, pp. 258-259 (for a discussion of Yoram Dinstein s theory). 

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