2.1.2 The scope of application of relevant legal frameworks - Alexander Breitegger, (Legal Adviser, ICRC) - Module 2: The legal framework on the protection of health-care delivery

[MUSIC]

Welcome back to this first substantive sequence in the module of legal protection

for health care delivery in armed conflict or other emergencies.

At the end of this particular sequence,

you should be able to identify major differences between the international

legal frameworks of international humanitarian law,

which we shall briefly refer to as IHL and international human rights law.

Secondly, be able to identify the specific role that domestic

legislation has to play in implementing these legal frameworks.

And finally, be able to describe the relationship between

ethical principles of health care and the law.

On the first dimension of course, it is clear that international humanitarian

law and international human rights law share one general objective.

Namely:to aim at the protection of patients and the health care delivery.

However, it is also important to appreciate general differences in

their application.

And briefly, I'm going to mention three of those differences.

First, in terms of the respective specificity in

these legal frameworks, in enshrining the protection,

international humanitarian law is much more specific,

in the specific situation of armed conflict.

It provides precise definitions of the wounded and sick.

So those benefiting from health care as those that require medical care,

whether they are civilians or military and

that abstain from any hostile acts being involved in military operations.

And then also international humanitarian law provides specific definitions

on the components of a health-care system that must be protected in an armed

conflict. Namely, medical personnel, facilities and transports.

Chiefly for being specifically protected as one of these persons or objects.

It is necessary that competent authorities of a party to an armed conflict

involved in an armed conflict, predetermine that they are going to

serve on medical purposes during that armed conflict.

Beside those specific categories that have specific privileges

such as using the Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Crystal emblems, and

that have an enhanced protection, there are also specific rules under IHL to

protect the exercise of medical activities in conformity with medical ethics.

And then finally, they also foresee roles for individuals,

civilians, to assist in the performance of medical tasks.

If we turn to human rights law on the other hand,

it is much more generic. In that, it is designed to basically

protect individuals an access to a health-care system.

It is designed to lay the foundations of the public

health care system around making already,

health care facilities available to individuals,

providing access to them, being acceptable in terms of the culture concerned.

But it does not in the same manner as international humanitarian law

provide specific protections for

health care providers on account of their specific functions that they perform.

This is why in the specific situation of an armed conflict,

IHL is the legal framework that is to be primarily resorted to

because it contains the greatest specificity.

Another very relevant difference is to see in what situations these legal

frameworks apply.

2.1.2 The scope of application of relevant legal frameworks - Alexander Breitegger, (Legal Adviser, ICRC)

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