Why Did Starvation Not Become the Paradigmatic War Crime in International Law?

Abstract

In the late twentieth century, the starvation of civilian populations as a method of warfare came to be prohibited in international law. Yet starvation is still commonly used today. In retrospect, what is striking about its international legal history is that the ban itself happened so late and appears still so incomplete. Why did depriving non-combatants of the essential means of sustenance not come to be seen much earlier as a cruel form of wartime behaviour that should be unambiguously outlawed? This chapter critically analyses the history of the anti-starvation norm and explains not only why some political agendas for starvation were frequently tolerated, but also why others failed to reach the stage of codification, and what this tells us about its past and future. Understanding how and why people starve, what role the use of blockade and international law play, and to what degree Schreibtischmörder might be held responsible for it, gets to the heart of questions of contingency and international law.