Law

‘Starvation’ is a term used across the fields of relief operations, early warning responses, political analysis, and international law. Under international law, it denotes both death by hunger or deprivation of nourishment, as well as a more general deprivation or insufficient supply of some essential commodity or something necessary to live. Although ‘starvation’ in the English language implies death as a result, under international humanitarian law (‘IHL’) and international criminal law (‘ICL’), it also encompasses a range of illness and disease resulting from the lack of food, medicines, and other essential commodities. Other fields frequently refer to terms such as ‘malnutrition’, ‘famine’ and ‘food insecurity’.

Starvation is recognised as a prohibited method of warfare under both IHL and ICL. Additionally, depriving a person of objects indispensable to their survival (‘OIS’) is, without a doubt, also a violation of international human rights law (‘IHRL’), no matter whether there exists an armed conflict for IHL to apply or whether the act qualifies as a crime under ICL.

Accordingly, the chart below provides a brief overview of the protection against starvation-related conduct afforded under IHRL, its prohibition under IHL and criminalisation under ICL, and visualises the interaction between these three separate, yet connected, regimes.