The Law of Armed Conflict International Humanitarian Law in War

Chapter 11 is a brief chapter on seldom encountered legal issues: ruses and perfidy. Acts that invite an enemy’s confidence that he is entitled to protection under the rules of LOAC, with an intent to betray that confidence, is the crime of perfidy. It has been a codified war crime since 1907, though seldom prosecuted. False flags of truce, informing an opponent that the war is over so you can come on out, are perfidy, as is fighting in the enemy’s uniform. Feigning being wounded, however, is not perfidy, because it does not invite an enemy’s confidence. Examples in recent years are related: in Columbia against the FARC, in the Falklands against the British. Ruses, on the other hand, are lawful: deceit employed in the interest of military operations for the purpose of misleading the enemy. They do not invite the confidence of the enemy with respect to the protection of LOAC. Dummy artillery pieces, inflatable “tanks,” mock operations by nonexistent troops, all lawful.