Suchergebnisse

AbstractA special challenge posed by the international humanitarian law (IHL) principle of equality of belligerents in the context of non-international armed conflict is the capacity of armed opposition groups to pass sentences on individuals for acts related to the hostilities. Today this situation is conflated by the concurrent application of international human rights and criminal law. The fair trial provisions of IHL can incorporate their human rights equivalents either qua human rights law or by analogy, recognizing that human rights law does not account for the anomalous relationship between a state and non-state party. It is argued that the preferred solution is the latter. This would put greater focus on the actual fairness of insurgent courts rather than on their legal basis. Moreover, it would be consistent with the equality of belligerents principle, a vital condition to encourage IHL compliance by armed opposition groups.

Recent events in the Middle East present the latest and undoubtedly not the last challenge to international engagement with armed non-state actors. Over the last many years international humanitarian law has increasingly regulated the behaviour of armed non-state actors with regard to the protection of civilians. At the same time, counter-terror measures have increasingly addressed such conduct, as well as controlled the extent to which other actors may interact with armed non-state actors. Yet there is a fundamental contradiction between these regulatory regimes. The report takes a case study approach to examine the conundrum facing policymakers and, not least, state militaries, when navigating these policy regimes in Iraq and Syria. It analyses two prominent armed non-state actors and their acceptance of these regulatory regimes the People´s Protection Units (YPG) and Islamic State. The report concludes that it is time to consider strategic interoperability of international humanitarian law and counter-terror regimes in order to maximise the protection of civilians. Drawing a line in the sand at compliance with international humanitarian law and forcing armed non-state actors to choose whether or not they stand with the "terrorists" (e.g. IS) can motivate many of them towards compliance (e.g. PKK/YPG and others such as Ahrar al-Sham), as long as counter-terror measures don´t undermine the incentives to do so.

AbstractArmed non-state actors are involved in most armed conflicts today, yet international law provides few mechanisms to ensure that they comply with humanitarian norms applicable to them. In particular, monitoring and verification mechanisms that address the conduct of armed non-state actors rarely appear in multilateral treaties, and, even when they do, are weak and not applied in practice. Over the past few years, a number of alternative mechanisms have been developed to better monitor respect of humanitarian norms during internal armed conflicts and verify allegations of violations. This article examines the strength of these various mechanisms and then focuses on the Deed of Commitment, an innovative instrument developed by the Swiss-based non-governmental organization Geneva Call, to hold armed non-state actors accountable. Experience with the Deed of Commitment on the prohibition of anti-personnel mines shows that these alternative mechanisms can be effective in ensuring better compliance with at least some humanitarian norms.