International Humanitarian Law Artworks

This term, Year 9 Visual Arts were challenged with a project to use the principles of International Humanitarian Law to highlight the problems, threats and the impact of war.

There are four main principles set out by the IHL:

• The distinction between civilians and combatants (don’t attack civilians or civilian objects)

• The prohibition of attacks against those hors de combat (not to target those who are injured)

• The prohibition on the infliction of unnecessary suffering (ban unnecessary suffering)

• The principle of proportionality (prohibit attacks when the civilian harm would be excessive)

• The notion of necessity (do not give the armed forces the freedom to ignore humanitarian considerations)

• The principle of humanity (the law seeks to limit harm to all)

Year 9 hopes that seeing these works will motivate viewers to ask questions about the impacts of war and will think about those events happening right now in Israel.

The Year 9 International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Art project is the result of a proposal received from the Australian Red Cross (ARC) NSW IHL Committee. This project aimed to promote understanding among students that ‘Even Wars have Laws.’   

Committee Member Kirsten Keith said “A key part of the Australian Red Cross’s mandate is the dissemination of the principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Thinking about ways to do this to reach a younger audience, I know many students are visual learners and that learning about IHL principles from textbooks would not be quite so engaging! Then I thought about Picasso’s Guernica, the commissioning of war artists to record the horrors of war, and the fact that art can be a very powerful tool to help disseminate key issues facing humanity. And from here the seeds of the Year 9 IHL art project grew, with great support from Matthew Bentham and Andrew Jones. Ben Quilty’s talk about his experiences as a war artist in Afghanistan was fascinating and linked in with the talks I later to the students on the basic principles of IHL.
 
“It was an absolute privilege to collaborate with Oxley College art department on this project and to see the students engaging with these important issues, addressing senior school assembly with videos of their finished work. Hopefully we can repeat this process as it’s important for the students to learn about key principles that they see portrayed in the media.”