The Protection of the Right to Life in Military Operations: The Aegis of the ECHR and its Extraterritorial Application

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the protection afforded to the right to life under the European Convention on Human Rights in the situations of its greatest peril: military operations. We analyse the substantive and procedural obligations to which States Parties to the Convention are bound when force is used by the military and the specificities of military operations, concerning the protection of the right to life, are noted. The essential question of under what circumstances, when carrying out military operations, States exercise their jurisdiction extraterritorially is analysed, and the “back and forth” of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on this matter is highlighted.