Humanitarian law must grant asymmetrical parties equal chances to fight.

Evidence

Chaumont proposes a guiding principle to remedy such adverse effects. He says, “A humanitarian law, to be objective and credible, must leave to both sides equal chances in combat: if a legal norm is incompatible with this principle and makes it impossible for one side to hope for victory, the best thing is to renounce the establishment of such a law” (ibid.). — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1037 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

What he suggests here is not so much a right to equal combat, which would involve insisting on a struggle with equal weapons, but rather an equal right to fight. The fact that the law should not, by the norms that it imposes, make it “impossible from the start for one side to hope for victory” implies, not turning the war into a tournament—with pistol against pistol or sword against sword but, on the contrary, taking into consideration the disparity of the forces confronting each other and taking care not to increase it by imposing short-sighted laws that would confer to one side greater advantages while depriving the other side of even the possibility of fighting. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1038 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Humanitarian law must leave both sides equal chances to fight. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1037; Laws of war should grant equal right to fight, not equal arms; Law should equalize the right to fight, not the weapons themselves. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1038 (+3 more)

Related

• Humanitarian law must leave both sides equal chances to fight. (similarity 0.95)
• Laws of war should grant equal right to fight, not equal arms (similarity 0.91)
• Law should equalize the right to fight, not the weapons themselves. (similarity 0.88)
• Law that excludes adversaries from fighting fails to restrain their violence (similarity 0.82)
• Modern jus in bello rests on combatants’ equal right to kill, not on punishment (similarity 0.79)
• Outlawed combatants lose all incentive to obey war’s rules (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Humanitarian law must leave both sides equal chances to fight. #corroborates (0.95) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1037
• Laws of war should grant equal right to fight, not equal arms #expands (0.85)
• Law should equalize the right to fight, not the weapons themselves. #expands (0.85) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1038
• Physical force constitutes power because it asymmetrically orders parties’ relative preferences #complicates (0.75)
• Law that excludes adversaries from fighting fails to restrain their violence #corroborates (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1040