Rules of Engagement and the Situation of Individual Self-Defence: Applicable Law and Coherence with Operational Context

Within a broader discussion as to the place and role of self-defence within Rules of Engagement, this article seeks to describe some of the drafting and application issues that often present when employing Rules of Engagement – as a distillation of law, policy, operational context, and capability – to resolve, or to encapsulate the resolution achieved, in each mission-specific dialogue between operational context and the law of individual self-defence. To this end, the analysis will focus primarily (but not exclusively) upon the availability to military members of the ‘right’ of individual self-defence in otherwise law of armed conflict-governed operations.