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According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the duty to ‘ensure respect’ in Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions includes an external dimension: States have to ensure that other states respect their obligations under the Conventions, and arguably under international humanitarian law as a whole. This potentially has far-reaching consequences for states engaging in military operations together with partners, and the ICRC interpretation has been met with explicit pushback from a number of states as well as scholars. The present article seeks to revisit the debate on the extent of the obligation following from Common Article 1 in the context of partnered operations. We begin by providing a detailed outline of the ICRC view on the duty to ‘ensure respect by others’, as well as the reactions from states and scholarly contributions. Against this background, we examine—by carefully applying the customary rules on treaty interpretation enshrined in the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties—whether the duty to ensure respect has an external dimension judged by the ordinary meaning and intentions of the drafters, subsequent practice (both in relation to the ICRC and in other contexts) and judicial pronouncements. Having concluded that doctrinal legal analysis does indeed support an external dimension of Common Article 1, we then explore whether this duty to ensure respect by others applies to states regardless of the nature of the armed conflict and their own involvement in it. Finally, we analyse the exact content of the obligations arising from the duty to ensure respect by others under Common Article 1.

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As Nordic states and their allies embark on ever more challenging military operations abroad, the complexity of the applicable rules-and legal consequences they may have-is growing rapidly. In addition to the specific terms of the mandate and the underlying principles of the UN Charter, there are two regimes that govern the conduct of military and other security forces across the war-peace spectrum: the law of armed conflict (LOAC) and international human rights law (IHRL). The exact application of these regimes and their interaction remain matters of debate. Yet, the most vexing question is: what happens when it is not one state's own forces, but those of a partner that run afoul the LOAC and IHRL standards? This article maps and disentangles the relevant international rules and regimes under which responsibility may arise for states due to abuse committed by their partners in military operations abroad. It considers the general rules of state responsibility-in particular, the rule on state complicity-and the relevant substantive rules under the LOAC and IHRL as well as the Arms Trade Treaty and the UN Human Rights Due Diligence Policy. By and large, states have to abstain from any form of assistance that could contribute to the commission of IHRL and LOAC violations by their partners. Under certain circumstances, they even have to actively and continuously assess the risk of such misconduct occurring and take mitigating measures. Nevertheless, these obligations do not necessarily translate into an effective system of accountability.