Value-Based Attitude Towards International Humanitarian Law as Part of Personality Development of Military Students

Abstract

A value system is a complex of value orientations and meanings that have their roots in the outside world. For military students, international humanitarian law is an important part of personal value system. These norms shape the environment for quasi-professional and academic activities of future military lawyers and officers. International humanitarian legal norms regulate certain social relations, thus entering the sphere of subjective activity and acquiring positive significance. As a result, they become part of an officer’s personality. International legal acts are a quintessence of humanistic principles, goals, and ideas. In this respect, they are an objective source of universal human values and meanings. Hence, they characterize an officer as an intellectual. If introduced into military education curriculum, international humanitarian law could facilitate the development of personal values in future officers and military lawyers. To verify this hypothesis, the authors applied standard research methods to legal documents, as well as conducted a psychological and pedagogical experiment. They identified, systematized, and classified the values and meanings concentrated in the international legal acts of humanitarian law. The military students that studied the international humanitarian law respected traditions and valued security; they were more independent and achievement-oriented, as well as demonstrated a much higher level of communicative and organizational skills than the control group. Therefore, international humanitarian law proved to have a great potential for developing personality values in future officers as part of military education.