The 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Geneva Conventions on 12 August 1949 provided an opportunity for reflection on international humanitarian law (IHL). This article continues that reflection and presents some fresh scholarship about and from the Asia-Pacific region. The region's plurality leads to a complex and diverse landscape where there is no single “Asia-Pacific perspective on IHL” but there are instead many approaches and trajectories. This fragmented reality is, however, not a mess of incoherence and contradiction. In the following pages, the author argues for and justifies the following assessments. The first is that the norm of humanity in armed conflict, which underpins IHL, has deep roots in the region. This, to some extent, explains why there is no conceptual resistance to IHL, in the way that exists with the human rights doctrine. The second is that there has been meaningful participation of certain States from the region in IHL law-making. Thirdly, some Asia-Pacific States are among those actively contributing to the development of new or emerging areas relevant to IHL, such as outer space, cyberspace and the protection of the environment in armed conflict. This leads to the unavoidable issue of contradiction. How is it that in a region where such findings can be made (i.e., where there is discernible positivity towards the norm of humanity in armed conflict), there are so many armed conflicts with very serious IHL violations emerging? Should we reflect in a more nuanced way on “norm internalization” and “root causes”? These issues will be considered in the second section of the article. This examination leads to a third and final section, a concluding reflection on what all of this reveals about IHL in the Asia-Pacific. The real challenge for progressive humanitarianism, the author contends, is to traverse disciplines and to build on work done in, on and from the region in order to develop more informed and nuanced approaches to understanding the countries and societies of the region, moving on to study the process of norm internalization, and then developing creative and meaningful strategies for strengthening the links between that internalization, actual conduct on the ground, and norm socialization in the wider community.

中文翻译：

---

解读亚太地区国际人道法的格局

1949 年 8 月 12 日日内瓦四公约通过 70 周年为反思国际人道法 (IHL) 提供了机会。本文延续了这一反思，并介绍了一些关于亚太地区和来自亚太地区的新学术成果。该地区的多元化导致了复杂多样的格局，没有单一的“亚太国际人道法视角”，而是有许多方法和轨迹。然而，这种支离破碎的现实并不是一团糟的不连贯和矛盾。在接下来的几页中，作者论证并证明了以下评估。首先是作为国际人道法基础的武装冲突中的人道准则在该地区有着深厚的根基。这在一定程度上解释了为什么对国际人道法没有概念上的抵抗，以人权学说存在的方式。第二是该地区某些国家有意义地参与了国际人道法的立法。第三，一些亚太国家积极促进与国际人道法相关的新领域或新兴领域的发展，例如外层空间、网络空间和武装冲突中的环境保护。这导致了不可避免的矛盾问题。为什么在可以得出这样的结论的地区（即在武装冲突中对人道规范有明显的积极性），会出现如此多的严重违反国际人道法行为的武装冲突？我们是否应该更细致地反思“规范内化”和“根本原因”？这些问题将在本文的第二部分中讨论。本次审查引出第三部分，也是最后一部分，对所有这些对亚太地区国际人道法所揭示的内容进行总结性反思。作者认为，进步人道主义的真正挑战是跨越学科，并以在该地区、该地区和来自该地区的工作为基础，以便开发更明智和细致入微的方法来了解该地区的国家和社会，继续研究规范内化的过程，然后制定创造性和有意义的策略，以加强内化、实地实际行为和更广泛社区的规范社会化之间的联系。