Historical and philosophical sources indicate that various moral codes, customs, and traditional teachings functioned as early forms of the laws of war in antiquity.
The retrieved papers include historical discussions on ancient rules, moral constraints, and customs governing military force prior to modern international humanitarian law. Paper 1 details classical Confucian moral constraints on warfare, and Paper 9 reviews the history of the laws of war prior to the mid-1800s. There are no papers refuting the claim.