What drives restraint in armed conflict? Recent studies have examined different factors contributing to restraint behaviour, mainly focusing on strategic incentives, such as seeking legitimacy from international audiences or securing support from local communities. In this post, Henrique Garbino, Doctoral Candidate at the Swedish Defence University, and Matthew Bolton, Professor at Pace University, explore, instead, how traditional humanitarian norms protecting the innocent, the land, and the body may influence restraint on the use of landmines and similar explosive devices. They conclude that we should not perceive such norms as inadequate alternatives to international humanitarian law; instead, they may serve as a basis for extending global norms beyond the existing laws of war.