Expanding Bullet - Law

Law

The Hague Convention of 1899, Declaration III, prohibits the use in international warfare of bullets which easily expand or flatten in the body, giving as example a bullet with a jacket with incisions or one that does not fully cover the core. This is often incorrectly believed to be prohibited in the Geneva Conventions, but it significantly predates those conventions, and is in fact a continuance of the Declaration of St Petersburg in 1868, which banned exploding projectiles of less than 400 grams.

Until relatively recently, the prohibition on the use of expanding bullets was only applicable to international armed conflicts. The International Committee of the Red Cross's customary international law study contends that customary law now prohibits their use in armed conflicts not of an international character. The adoption of an amendment to Article 8 at the Review Conference of the Rome Statute in Kampala makes the use of expanding bullets in non-international armed conflict a war crime.

Because the Hague convention applies only to the use of expanding bullets in war, the use of expanding rounds remains legal, or even required, in some circumstances. Examples of this are use of appropriately expanding bullets in hunting, where it is desirable to stop the animal quickly either to prevent loss of a game animal, or ensure a humane death of vermin, and in law enforcement or self defence, where quickly neutralizing an aggressor may be needed to prevent further loss of life, or where the bullet must remain inside the target to prevent collateral damage e.g. on an aircraft.