Name: Lubna Elmahdy

ID: 647262
Course: International Humanitarian Law
Task: The Trojan Horse: Perfidy or Ruses of War?
Instructor: Duncan Ojwang
Date: May 31st 2018
The Trojan War was a legendary conflict between the early Greeks and the people of Troy in
western Anatolia, dated by later Greek authors to the 12th or 13th century BCE. The War fought
between the Greeks and Troy originated in this way. The son of King Priam of Troy, Paris, fell
in love and eloped with Helen, wife of Menelaus, the King of Sparta. In order to recover Helen,
the Greeks embarked on a great expedition under the overall command of Menelaus’s
brother, Agamemnon, king of Árgos or Mycenae. The Trojans refused to return Helen. Small
towns in or near the Troy were sacked by the Greeks, but Troy, assisted by allies from Asia
Minor and Thrace, withstood a Greek siege for 10 years.
Towards the end of the conflict, the Greeks built a huge wooden horse, that many Greek soldiers
hid inside of. In the meantime, the rest of the Greek army sailed away to Tenedos, a nearby
island, pretending to abandon the siege. Despite the warnings of Priam’s daughter Cassandra, the
Trojans were persuaded by Sinon, a Greek who feigned desertion, to take the horse inside the
walls of Troy as an offering to Athena. At night the Greek fleet returned, and the Greeks from
the horse opened the gates of Troy. In the total sack that followed, Priam and his remaining sons
were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed into slavery in various cities of Greece.
Under International Humanitarian Law, acts of perfidy are prohibited; whereas, ruses of war are
allowed. According to the Geneva Convention, Article 37 of Additional Protocol 1, it refers to
the Prohibition of Perfidy, for relevance of this paper we will strictly look at part 1(a) of Article
37 that exemplifies an act of perfidy:
the feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender.
In the case of the Trojan War this applies because the Trojan horse was sent as an offering to
Athena and brought into Troy, whilst the Greek army acted as though they had surrendered by
travelling to Tenedos. Therefore, the Greek army was pretending to surrender when they gave
they gave the offering of the statue.
Furthermore, one could argue that the act of the Greeks could also be a ruse of war. According to
Article 37, part 2:
Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts which are intended to mislead an
adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international
law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the
confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are
examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and
misinformation.
According to this, one could argue that the horse acted as a decoy of a peace offering while it
was being used as a means of gaining access to Troy, as well as, a camouflage for the Greek
soldiers that enabled them to enter into Troy. Overall, perfidy and ruses of war both involve
deception but with perfidy, the adversary believes that they are still under protection of
international law if they engage with the belligerents and they gain their confidence within the
various examples of perfidy. Ruses of war, alternatively, have no protection under international
law and aren’t perfidious because they don’t invite the confidence of the adversary