The law at hand: Paratext in manuals on international humanitarian law

This chapter analyses four major manuals of IHL (the 1994 and 2006 San Remo Manual, the 2009 Harvard Manual and the 2013 Tallinn Manual) and establishes three combined characteristics: they are international manuals, they take the form of 'restatements' of law, and they want to instruct users on how to apply existing rules. To explore the 'restatement of law', the chapter deals with the questions of how to claim legitimacy in restatements and why international manuals so often repeat basic rules of IHL. Manuals in IHL try to restate valid rules, so their legitimacy is connected to the correctness of the restatement. Furthermore, the technique of repetition is a major aspect: it serves to confirm the rules' authority, while claiming that established rules fit in a new context. IHL manuals also resemble consumer product manuals as they try to instruct the reader on how to read and apply the law.