To be clear, an otherwise lawful wartime mission is not rendered improper simply because the orders call for the killing of an individual combatant who is properly targetable under the law of armed conflict. Professor Carter suggested that legality turned on “whether the mission orders were to capture or to kill” Bin Laden, and indicated concern about the propriety of the raid “if the mission orders were indeed to kill.” There is no reason for his fretting: the raid was fully legal. Navy SEALS that killed Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011. International Humanitarian Law is a subset of Public International Law and consists largely of treaties, decisions from international tribunals, and additional resources produced by NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and INGOS (international non-governmental organizations).In a January 25th op-ed posted on Bloomberg, Yale Law professor Stephen Carter raised issues about the lawfulness of the raid by U.S. In 1949, during the aftermath of World War II, the Geneva Conventions established rules providing specific protections for those not taking part in the hostilities, such as civilians, aid workers, wounded soldiers, and prisoners of war. These have been supplemented by additional agreements in the years since. The most significant early efforts were the First Hague Conference in 1899 and the Second Hague Conference in 1907, which resulted in the Hague Conventions, which governed the conduct of warfare. The law of warfare existed historically as a set of practices developed over hundreds of years, but in the mid-19th century states began to codify the law into treaties.

It protects persons who are not or are no longer participating in the hostilities and restricts the means and methods of warfare.” See International Committee of the Red Cross, What is International Humanitarian Law (July 2004), available as a PDF here. International Humanitarian Law, also known as the Law of War or the Law of Armed Conflict, is generally defined as “a set of rules which seek, for humanitarian reasons, to limit the effects of armed conflict. Introduction to the Law of Armed Conflict

Law on armed conflict