|
Non-State Armed Groups and International Law The ascendancy of non-state armed groups alongside state actors represents a core challenge in terms of international law, both for international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL). This rise is poses a policy dilemma for international agencies and governments, which under the Westphalian system maintain near exclusive legitimacy as the bearers of rights and obligations under international law. Non-state armed groups, often operating transnationally across boundaries, are increasingly challenging this paradigm, particularly in regions where states have been unable or unwilling to fulfill their rights and obligations to their citizens. By providing social services, non-state actors have established legitimacy among the population within which they operate, challenging the right of states to have a monopoly on the use of force. International Humanitarian Law is limited in its ability to regulate these asymmetric engagements, as is International Human rights Law.Yet a number of initiatives have been undertaken to promote compliance, on the part of all parties, to these laws by exploring the different facets of the body of international law that regulates warfare. |
|
Challenges to International Humanitarian Law
International Humanitarian Law (IHL), specifically the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their two Additional Protocols of 1977, are facing increasing pressures of robust application and enforcement in current conflicts. As an institution created by and largely for states at a time when global power rested politically with these actors, the rise of transnational and non-state armed groups challenges such a system’s relevance as a normative model of law applicable to global society. As a tool to protect civilian populations during armed conflicts by requiring the distinction between civilians and combatants, and proportionate uses of force, international humanitarian law is faced with the increasing use of asymmetrical warfare both by state and non-state actors, which blurs the lines of distinction and proportionality.
|
Challenges to International Humanitarian Law
Talking To Terrorists: One Interrogator's Story Violent Non-state Actors and National and International Security Islamist De-Radicalization in Algeria: Successes and Failures |
|
Challenges to International Human Rights Law
International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and its relationship to non-state actors is a point of increasing debate. With the prominent role adopted by non-state actors in the international arena, there are concomitant calls for added compliance with international human rights law. The legal, political, and operational challenges posed by compliance incentives for non-state actors are affected by interrelated issues such as legitimacy and democracy, and such complementary legal frameworks as international criminal law.
|
Challenges to International Human Rights Law
Talking To Terrorists: One Interrogator's Story Violent Non-state Actors and National and International Security Islamist De-Radicalization in Algeria: Successes and Failures |
|
Compliance with International Law
Given the existing legal frameworks of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, the proliferation of transnational and non-state armed groups, and the changed reality of modern warfare, international efforts continue to aim at regulating conflict environments by bringing all actors into compliance with existing rules. While a potential update and reconstitution of key tenets of the laws of war has been considered (called for by some parties, resisted by others), conflict arises between self-preservation of the system and the development of new law.
|
Compliance with International Law
Fighting Terrorism Fairly and Effectively: Recommendations for President-Elect Barack Obama Workshop for Caribbean Countries on Countering Terrorism Financing |