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ICRC Engagement with Non-State Armed Groups

Why, how, for what purpose, and other salient issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2021

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Abstract

ICRC Position Paper March 2021.

Type
Reports and documents
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 102 , Issue 915: Non-State armed groups , December 2020 , pp. 1087 - 1098
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the ICRC

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References

1 IHL and the Challenge of Contemporary Armed Conflicts, ICRC Report, 2011, p. 8.

2 Idem.

3 Additional Protocol II of 1977 to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, Article 1(2).

4 The Roots of Restraint in War, ICRC Report, 2018, available at: https://www.icrc.org/en/publication/roots-restraint-war.

5 As is well known, the CPN-Maoist have since become part of the Government of Nepal and the MILF has taken up an official role in the local government as a result of the decades-long peace negotiations with the Government of the Philippines.

6 See note 4 above.

7 There is no equality of rights and obligations of the parties to a NIAC under domestic law, as explained further below.

8 Geneva Conventions I, II, III and IV of 1949, Common Article 3.

9 By way of reminder, these provisions prohibit, among other things, violence to life, in particular murder, cruel treatment and torture, hostage-taking, outrages upon personal dignity, and the passing of sentences without the application of judicial guarantees. Idem, para 1 (a-d).

10 Idem, para 2. This is also known as the ICRC's treaty-based right of humanitarian initiative pursuant to Common Article 3. The organization also has a right of humanitarian initiative under the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Article 5(3)), which it may rely on to offer humanitarian services in situations of violence below the threshold of a NIAC.

11 See ICRC Commentary on the First Geneva Convention, Common Article 3, 2016, paras 832–840.

12 Additional Protocol II of 1977 to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, Article 1(1).

13 Idem.

14 Geneva Conventions I, II, III and IV of 1949, Common Article 3, para 2.

15 IHL and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts, ICRC Report, 2007, p. 7, available at: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/ihl-challenges-30th-international-conference-eng.pdf.