Legality Under Fire: A Comparative Analysis of U.S. Adherence to International Humanitarian Law During the Vietnam War and the U.S. War on Terror

The United States has frequently been a key player in the shaping and development of IHL. However, the U.S. has simultaneously circumvented IHL throughout numerous conflicts. This research investigates U.S. adherence to IHL when it comes to the treatment of detainees and attacks against civilians. A comparative approach is taken to compare adherence by the United States during the Vietnam War and the U.S. War on Terror. By comparing these two conflicts it is possible to uncover common trends as well as to see ways in which U.S. policy and practice regarding IHL changes. During the Vietnam War the United States not only followed the rights established for detainees by IHL but extended these rights beyond what was required. However, regardless of this, violations still took place. The U.S. War on Terror, in contrast, involved a systematic move by the United States government not only to ignore, but to formulate their own in-depth reasoning for why the law should not apply to them in order to carry out the detention policies they wished to. Additionally, both conflicts involved large-scale violations of the protections that are afforded to civilians. While the ways in which these breaches of IHL were carried out differed greatly between the two conflicts, the scale was similar. There are many factors at play that can be attributed to causing these deviations from IHL including a quest for power, public perceptions, fear, unequal distributions of power, and poor leadership.