Between the Geneva Conventions: Where Does the Unlawful Combatant Belong?

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 378-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shlomy Zachary
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Aspect ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
International Laws ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Terrorist Acts ◽  
Unites States ◽  
New Situation

The growing impact of terrorist acts in the past few years has lead to dramatic changes in the internal laws of the growing number of States that suffer from terrorism, but has also lead to various attempts to adapt international law - more specifically, the International Laws of War - to the new situation or threat, as many perceive it. The Laws of War, like most areas of Public International Law, deal with the relations between nations, while hardly dealing with non-governmental entities like terrorist organisations or the individual terrorist, thereby creating an apparent legal “loophole”. One of the solutions found by States in order to deal, legally, with terrorists, was by defining them “unlawful combatants”.This essay tries to examine the development of the term “unlawful combatant”, by examining some complications that might occur from the use of the term “unlawful combatant” as an intermediate, new status in international law. By using it as a new status. States try to exclude terrorists from finding protection under the Geneva Conventions, which are intended to safeguard various individuals during armed conflicts. After examining the term “unlawful combatant”, both from an historical and legal aspect, this essay will attempt to show that the existing Laws of War, which acknowledge only two statuses – the ‘civilian’ and the ‘combatant’ – provide a satisfactory solution to the problem of terrorism in its non-governmental sense. After exploring recent policies and legal developments in Israel and the Unites States, countries that use the term “unlawful combatant”, this essay will criticise the ambiguity of these definitions, and point out future problems that might arise from this ambiguity during armed conflicts.

scholarly journals Forum Isolation: Social Opprobrium and the Origins of the International Law of Internal Conflict

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Mantilla
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
International Laws ◽  
Saving Face ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts

AbstractWhy have states created international laws to regulate internal armed conflicts? This article is the first to theorize the emergence and design of these international rules, focusing on Common Article 3 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Drawing on original multicountry archival research, I develop the mechanism offorum isolationto explain the origins of Common Article 3, demonstrating the importance of social opprobrium pressure to explain why Britain and France switched from staunch opposition to support and leadership in 1949. Specifically, forum isolation pressured these European empires to concedeandto react strategically behind the scenes, saving face and safeguarding their security interests by deliberately inserting ambiguous language in the text of Common Article 3. This move later facilitated states' avoidance of this rule in many conflict cases.

Of Rebels, Insurgents, and Belligerents

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tilman Rodenhäuser
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
State Practice

The first chapter opens the substantive analysis of the organization requirement for non-state parties to armed conflicts. First, it briefly examines why the laws of war have originally been state-focused, and shows how this state focus coined international law requirements of main characteristics of a party to an armed conflict. Second, it analyses how philosophers broadened the legal notion of ‘war’ as to include conflicts involving certain non-state entities. Subsequently, this chapter examines state practice to identify which qualities a non-state armed group needed to possess to obtain the ‘belligerent’ status. It also examines the question of which kind of entities could qualify as ‘insurgents’ or ‘rebels’.

From Reprisals to Criminal Accountability: State Bias and the Prospects of Limiting War Through Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 365-388
Author(s):  
Pablo Kalmanovitz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Central Element ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Agents

Abstract Over the past 25 years, criminal prosecutions for war crimes have become a central element in the long-standing project of governing hostilities in international law. According to many, the threat of criminal prosecutions can be a general deterrent against violations of the laws of war, and can contribute more broadly to the diffusion and domestic appropriation of humanitarian norms. This article discusses some unintended effects of this “anti-impunity turn” in the laws of war in the context of non-international armed conflicts. Specifically, it examines the consequences of the fact that states typically have a monopoly over the means of legitimate criminal investigation for alleged crimes committed in their territory. Far from operating on a level playing field, criminal investigations in war contexts must be undertaken under institutional conditions that tend to favor state agents over non-state opposition groups. The article spells out some implications of this form of state bias and argues that it can contribute to exacerbate conflict and prolong violence in war.

Covenants Without the Sword International Law and the Protection of Civilians in Times of War

2006 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Valentino ◽  
Paul Huth ◽  
Sarah Croco
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
International Law ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Long Duration ◽  
International Laws ◽  
The Hague ◽  
War Aims

Do the international laws of war effectively protect civilian populations from deliberate attack? In a statistical analysis of all interstate wars from 1900 to 2003 the authors find no evidence that signatories of The Hague or Geneva Conventions intentionally kill fewer civilians during war than do nonsignatories. This result holds for democratic signatories and for wars in which both sides are parties to the treaty. Nor do they find evidence that a state's regime type or the existence of ethnic or religious differences between combatants explains the variation in civilian targeting. They find strong support, however, for their theoretical framework, which suggests that combatants seek to kill enemy civilians when they believe that doing so will coerce their adversaries into early surrender or undermine their adversaries' war-related domestic production. The authors find that states fighting wars of attrition or counterinsurgency, states fighting for expansive war aims, and states fighting wars of long duration kill significantly more civilians than states in other kinds of wars.

5 Combatants and Non-Combatants

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ipsen Knut
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Direct Part ◽  
Minimum Standard ◽  
Individual Protection ◽  
The Many ◽  
Enemy Combatant ◽  
The Individual

This chapter examines the regulation of combatant status in treaty law and the many challenges for combatant status in recent armed conflicts. The primary status under international law of persons in an international armed conflict will be one of two categories of persons: ‘combatants’ and ‘civilians’. Combatants may fight within the limits imposed by international law applicable in international armed conflict, that is, they may participate directly in hostilities, which members of medical or religious personnel and ‘non-combatants’ may not do because they are excluded—by international law and by a legal act of their party to the conflict—from the authorization to take a direct part in hostilities. The chapter then discusses ‘unlawful combatants’, or what may be considered the better term: ‘unprivileged belligerents’. The term ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ was particularly used after 11 September 2001, to introduce a third category of persons which under existing law may be either combatants or civilians, but are denied such status as not fulfilling essential conditions. To use this third category in order to reduce the individual protection below the minimum standard of human rights is under no circumstances legally acceptable.

The New Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims

1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 462-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean S. Pictet
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
War Victims

The Geneva Conventions are the basis on which rest the rules of international law for the protection of the victims of armed conflicts.

scholarly journals As execuções seletivas e a responsabilização de agentes terroristas

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Guerreiro
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
The Third ◽  
Legal Context ◽  
Minimum Number ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Terrorist Acts ◽  
Present Subject

Com o presente artigo é proposta a análise à crescente prática, no âmbito da luta contra o terrorismo, de execuções seletivas por alguns Estados, no que diz respeito à sua legalidade e licitude. Para este efeito, é feito um enquadramento histórico-político genérico da evolução da adoção de condutas que visam a concretização de execuções seletivas e outro de âmbito jurídico alusivo às situações em que um Ser Humano pode ser privado da vida. Deste modo, e com base na análise das normas internacionais em vigor, da jurisprudência mais relevante e também da doutrina que ou se pronuncia sobre o assunto ou contribui para a presente investigação, são dissecadas as duas atuais teses de conflitos armados e o terceiro modelo que tem vindo a ser reivindicado por um número residual de Estados como forma de legitimarem um quadro de supressão de todos os direitos básicos de pessoas de quem se suspeita estarem envolvidas em atos de terrorismo (concretizados ou a concretizar). Assim, é desenvolvida uma análise crítica no decorrer do artigo que concluirá que as execuções seletivas em contexto de luta contra o terrorismo constituem práticas ilícitas e violam o Direito Internacional propondo-se, como alternativa, que os terroristas sejam integrados no conceito de civil, qualidade esta que perdem se estiverem preenchidos cinco requisitos. (With the present article it is suggested an assessment to legality and lawfulness of the growing international practice of targeted killings, most of them justified within the context of the fight against terrorism by different countries. To this end, it is made a general historical and political framework regarding the evolution of the adoption of actions concerning targeted killings as well as the legal context according to which a person can be deprived of his/her life. Thereby, and considering the standards laid down in international law rules currently in force and also the most relevant jurisprudence and doctrine that deal with the present subject or that, at some extent, provide important means to support the present research, the two current official models of armed conflicts are dissected on this article. The same goes to the third model which is supported by a minimum number of States and takes into account the elimination of all basic rights to persons suspect of being involved in terrorist acts (committed or to be committed). Thus, a critical analysis is set along the present article which will come to the conclusion that targeted killings are unlawful and, consequently, contravene international law. Therefore, an alternative is suggested according to which terrorists shall be considered civilians unless five requirements are met.)

scholarly journals The International Protection of Women in Armed Conflicts

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-78
Author(s):  
Reagr F. Muhammadamin ◽  
Bryar S. Baban
Keyword(s):  
Special Needs ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Community ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
International Protection ◽  
Geneva Conventions

The protection of women during armed conflicts has from time to time been a matter of concern to the international community in various forms and degrees. The laws of war have regulated the protection of women long before the Geneva Conventions and additional protocols system. The aim of this paper is to highlight the protection that women should be given in armed conflict, also taking into account their special needs.

“The Rights and Obligations of Parties to International Armed Conflicts”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janina Dill
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
International Community ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Community Interest ◽  
The Individual

This chapter argues that the process commonly described as the development of international law “from bilateralism to community interest” should be dis-aggregated into its formal, procedural, and substantive dimensions. A move away from formal and procedural bilateralism is always a move towards community interest because it furthers the rule of law. In contrast, a move away from formal/procedural bilateralism does not guarantee a better protection of the community’s substantive interests. International humanitarian law is a trailblazer of procedural and formal progress, yet a slacker in the substantive move toward what is commonly taken to be community interest: protecting the individual. The chapter further shows that alongside protecting the individual, the international community has a second competing substantive interest in the regulation of warfare: preserving military efficacy. International humanitarian law’s development highlights that progress in international law is more complex than the phrase “from bilateralism to community interest” suggests .

Introduction

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-3 ◽  
Author(s):  
George H. Aldrich ◽  
Christine M. Chinkin
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Geneva Convention ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Royal Family ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Financial Burdens ◽  
Preparatory Work

On May 18, 1899, die first Hague Peace Conference was convened in the House in the Woods provided by the Dutch royal family. It was attended by invitation by representatives of twenty-six of the fifty-nine governments that then claimed sovereignty. The hundred delegates included diplomats, statesmen (no stateswomen!), publicists, lawyers, and technical and scientific experts. Unlike earlier peace conferences, which were convened to terminate ongoing armed conflicts, the Hague Conference met in peacetime for the purpose of making law. The conference was called at the initiative of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia with the intentions principally to seek agreements to limit armaments and their consequent financial burdens, and secondarily to improve the prospects for the peaceful setdement of international disputes and to codify the laws of war. Doubtiess, the tsar’s initiative was inspired in part by his grandfather’s earlier success in obtaining the St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868, which prohibited, for humanitarian reasons, the use of explosive projectiles weighing less than four hundred grams. In any event, the Hague Peace Conference pursued a much broader agenda than the meetings at St. Petersburg and was able to draw upon certain preparatory work on the laws of war, including the Geneva Convention on the Amelioration of the Conditions of the Wounded in Armies in the Field of 1864, the draft Project of an International Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs of War produced by the Brussels Conference of 1874, and the Oxford Manual on the laws of war of 1880, which had been adopted unanimously by the Institute of International Law.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document