Analysing the development of the concept of non-state parties to an armed conflict from the writings of philosophers in the eighteenth century through international humanitarian law (IHL) treaty law to contemporary practice, three threads can be identified. First, as pointed out by Rousseau almost two and a half centuries ago, one basic principle underlying the laws of war is that war is not a relation between men but between entities. Accordingly, the lawful objective of parties cannot be to harm opponents as individuals but only to overcome the entity for which the individual fights. This necessitates that any party to an armed conflict is a collective, organized entity and not a loosely connected group of individuals. Second, de Vattel already stressed that civil war is fought between two parties who ‘acknowledge no common judge’ and have no ‘common superior’ on earth....
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’.
The year 1974 marks the centennial of the International Declaration of Brussels on the Laws and Customs of War. This effort to codify the most important laws of war, undertaken on the initiative of Czar Alexander II of Russia, constituted a decisive stage in the development of the law of war. It is this event which the Committee for the Protection of Human Life in Armed Conflicts, under the patronage of the Belgian Government, proposes to commemorate by an international seminar on the theme “The Concept of International Armed Conflict—New Perspectives”, in December of this year.
Human rights are said to be ill-adapted to times of armed conflict or for dealing with exceptional terrorist threats. Are human rights limited by the applicability of other branches of international law including the laws of war? Are there limits to the work human rights can usefully do in situations of threatened violence when their strict application is said to put lives at risk? This chapter tackles some of the contemporary arguments surrounding the limitations of human rights law in the face of the competing demands of winning the war and killing terrorists. It focuses on killings and detention inside and outside armed conflict. It also asks whether there are limits to the obligations we can impose on armed groups.
Since its founding in May 1988, Africa Watch has documented and reported on human rights abuses in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These findings are available in eight book-length reports and more than 70 newsletters, with new evidence available all the time on such topics as, for example, the suppression of information in the Sudan, violations of laws of war in Liberia, the devastating impact of the 15-year armed conflict in Angola, slavery in Mauritania, and interference with academic freedom in Zimbabwe.
A central element of the dominant view of just war theory is the moral equality of soldiers: combatants have equal rights to wage war against one another and are entitled to certain protections if captured, without regard to which side's cause of war is just. But whether and how this principle should apply in asymmetric armed conflicts between states and nonstate groups is profoundly unsettled. I argue that we should confer war rights on fighters for nonstate groups when they are engaged in violence that has risen to the level of armed conflict, and when the state against which the war is being waged is not entitled to assert its monopoly on the legitimate exercise of force, either because 1) the nonstate group has established sufficient control over territory to assert its own governing authority; or 2) because the group is located abroad. Conferring war rights on nonstate fighters does not, however, permit them to engage in acts that violate the laws of war. Fighters who commit such violations are individually subject to prosecution without regard to their group's entitlement to war rights.
The author looks at whether laws governing war can ever reduce suffering by imposing restrictions on the methods and means of waging war. In particular, the laws of war have tended either to address past technology or to fall victim to the exigencies of war. The author first discusses, without deciding, whether there can be any moral grounding for laws regulating war. Next, he examines the development of laws governing aerial bombardment. Pertinent international laws, protocols and conventions are canvassed. Finally, the efficacy of the laws of aerial bombardment are assessed within the context of three specific events during the Gulf War. The author evaluates whether combatants in the Gulf War adhered to the laws governing aerial bombardment; he concludes that the stronger party's conduct during the Gulf War substantially complied with these restrictions. Such adherence in itself constitutes a law-making function. Thus, although the enforceability of laws restricting war is arguable, the body of law itself can have the limiting effect intended.
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.
Scuds, Shelters and Retreating Soldiers: The Laws of Aerial Bombardment in the Gulf War