Indiscriminate attack

In international humanitarian law and international criminal law, an indiscriminate attack is a military attack that fails to distinguish between military objectives and protected (civilian) objects. Indiscriminate attacks strike both military and protected objects alike, thus violating the principle of distinction between combatants and civilians. They differ from direct (or deliberate) attacks against civilians and encompass cases in which the perpetrators are indifferent as to the nature of the target, cases in which the perpetrators use tactics or weapons that are inherently indiscriminate (e.g., cluster munitions, anti-personnel mines, nuclear weapons), and cases in which the attack is disproportionate, because it is likely to cause excessive civilian casualties and damages to protected objects. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited both by the Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol I (1977) and by customary international law. They constitute a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the perpetrators can be prosecuted and held responsible in international and domestic courts. Indiscriminate attacks are military attacks that neglect the distinction between legitimate military targets, on the one side, and persons and objects that enjoy protection under international humanitarian law, on the other. Protected objects include civilians and civilian objects that do not make an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction does not offer a definite military advantage. Protected objects under international humanitarian law include also objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, cultural objects and places of worship, undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or building, works and installations containing dangerous forces, such as nuclear plants, dams and dikes, and the natural environment, which should not be exposed to widespread, long-term, and severe damage. Indiscriminate attacks strike military objects and protected objects alike, thus violating the principle of distinction between combatants and civilians.

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Related concepts (7)

Collateral damage

Collateral damage is any death, injury, or other damage inflicted that is an incidental result of an activity. Originally coined by military operations, it is now also used in non-military contexts. Since the development of precision guided munitions in the 1970s, military forces often claim to have gone to great lengths to minimize collateral damage. Critics of use of the term "collateral damage" see it as a euphemism that dehumanizes non-combatants killed or injured during combat, used to reduce the perceived culpability of military leadership in failing to prevent non-combatant casualties.

Indiscriminate attack

Russian invasion of Ukraine

On 24 February 2022, in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War which began in 2014. The invasion has killed tens of thousands on both sides. Russian forces have been responsible for mass civilian casualties and for torturing captured Ukrainian soldiers. By June 2022, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced. More than 8.2 million had fled the country by May 2023, becoming Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. Extensive environmental damage, widely described as ecocide, contributed to food crises worldwide.