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Comment by gpm

17 hours ago

Eh, the quoted text, and also the literal text of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 28 [1], doesn't qualify "certain points or areas" as only "military sites". While the other side should only be attacking military sites I don't see how that could possibly justify protecting non-military sites with human shields.

> As an extreme hypothetical, are humans living in their homes acting as human shields for those homes? How about people at school? How about people parading on a bridge?

Generally speaking I read this as not, because they aren't being "used to" render those points immune from attack, they just happen to be doing so. Hypothetically if you were to rush civilians back to their homes in an evacuated town to protect it from an attack - or as you suggest organize parades on bridges that are threatened - that would seem to meet the "used to" requirement.

(Good discussion though)

[1] https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/art...

> Article 28 - Prohibition of using human shields

> The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.

Article 54 gives some sites that may not be attacked. Maybe a protected person cannot render at least those sites “immune” since they are already immune.