Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T10:07:14.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lessons for the law of armed conflict from commitments of armed groups: identification of legitimate targets and prisoners of war

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2011

Sandesh Sivakumaran
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Armed groups frequently issue ad hoc commitments that contain a law of armed conflict component. These commitments detail the obligation of the relevant armed group to abide by international humanitarian law, the Geneva Conventions, or particular rules set out in the commitment. They commit the group to abide by international standards, sometimes exceed international standards, or in certain respects violate international standards. Although these commitments are often overlooked, they offer certain lessons for the law of armed conflict. This article considers the commitments of armed groups with respect to two specific areas of the law that are either of contested interpretation or seemingly inapplicable to non-international armed conflicts, namely the identification of legitimate targets and the prisoners of war regime.

Type
Armed Groups and International Law
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 93 , Issue 882: Understanding armed groups and the applicable law , June 2011 , pp. 463 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Henckaerts, Jean-Marie and Doswald-Beck, Louise, Customary International Humanitarian Law, 2 vols, ICRC/Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 See generally, Roberts, Anthea and Sivakumaran, Sandesh, ‘Law-making by non-state actors: engaging armed groups in the creation of international humanitarian law’, in Yale Journal of International Law, Vol. 37 (forthcoming)Google Scholar.

3 This part develops the discussion in Sivakumaran, Sandesh, ‘Re-envisaging the international law of internal armed conflict’, in European Journal of International Law, Vol. 22, 2011, pp. 261–262Google Scholar.

4 See below, ‘Equivalence with the law of armed conflict’.

5 On Geneva Call, see http://www.genevacall.org/ (last visited 27 September 2011).

6 ‘PKK Statement to the United Nations’, 24 January 1995.

7 ‘Statement by the Opposition Movements [JEM and SLM–Unity]’, undated (published on 11 July 2008), available at: http://www.hdcentre.org/projects/sudan (last visited 27 September 2011).

8 See e.g. National Democratic Front of the Philippines, ‘Declaration of Undertaking to Apply the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol I of 1977’, addressed to the Swiss Federal Council, 5 July 1996; National Democratic Front of the Philippines, ‘Declaration of Undertaking to Apply the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol I of 1977’, addressed to the ICRC, 5 July 1996.

9 ‘Agreement on Human Rights’, annexed to UN Doc. A/44/971-S/21541, 16 August 1990.

10 See e.g. Sudan People's Liberation Movement-United/Operation Lifeline Sudan, ‘Agreement on ground rules’, May 1996.

11 See e.g. ‘Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Sudan, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement and the United Nations regarding United Nations Mine Action Support to Sudan’, 19 September 2002.

12 See e.g. in this issue, ‘Collection of codes of conduct for armed groups’.

13 See e.g. Kosovo Liberation Army, Interim Regulations on the Organization of Internal Affairs in the Army, Prishtina, 1998Google Scholar.

14 See below, ‘Equivalence with the law of armed conflict’.

15 Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), Prosecutor v. Sesay, Kallon and Gbao, Case No. SCSL-04-15-T, Judgment (Trial Chamber), 2 March 2009, para. 705; ‘Basic rules of the New People's Army’, Principle IV, Point 3, reproduced in National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), Declaration of Undertaking to Apply the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol I of 1977, NDFP Human Rights Monitoring Committee Booklet No. 6, pp. 85–90; NRA Code of Conduct, reproduced in Ori Amaza, Museveni's Long March from Guerrilla to Statesman, Fountain Publishers, Kampala, 1998, Appendix 3.

16 Reproduced and translated as an annex to Munir, Muhammad, ‘The Layha for the Mujahideen: an analysis of the code of conduct for the Taliban fighters under Islamic law’, in International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 93, No. 881, 2011, pp. 103–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 See e.g. Communist Party of Nepal–Maoist, ‘Public Legal Code 2060 (2003/2004)’.

18 See e.g. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, ‘Tamil Eelam Child Protection Act’ (Act No. 3 of 2006).

19 See e.g. Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, ‘Revolutionary Women's Law’.

20 See e.g. NDFP, Letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon on children in armed conflict, 24 November 2008; ‘KNU [Karen National Union] Press Statement on Report of UNSG’, 27 April 2009; ‘Report of the Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan Issued 2 October 2009: A Response from JEM [Justice and Equality Movement]’, 16 November 2009.

21 See e.g. ‘Statement of the Opposition Movements [JEM and Sudan Liberation Movement–Unity (SLM–Unity)]’, above note 7.

22 See e.g. National Transitional Council, ‘A vision of a democratic Libya’, 29 March 2011.

23 Letter from Vellupillai Prabhakaran, Leader, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to Members and Observers, United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Forty-fourth session, 24 February 1988. See also Letter from Velummylum Manoharan, Representative, LTTE International Secretariat, to Honourable Judges of the US Court of Appeal District of Colombia Circuit (undated), reproduced in the Sunday Times (Sri Lanka), 16 November 1997.

24 NDFP ‘Declaration of adherence to international humanitarian law’, 15 August 1991, reproduced in NDFP, above note 15, Annex D, p. 98.

25 National Transitional Council, ‘The treatment of detainees and prisoners’, 25 March 2011.

26 Abidjan Peace Agreement, 30 November 1996, Article 21. See also the Preamble to the Agreement.

27 ‘Lasting peace in Sierra Leone: the Revolutionary United Front Sierra Leone (RUF/SL) perspective and vision’, undated.

28 Declaration by UNITA, 25 July 1980, reproduced in International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 20, No. 219, 1980, p. 320Google Scholar.

29 See Sassòli, Marco, ‘Taking armed groups seriously: ways to improve their compliance with international humanitarian law’, in Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, Vol. 1, 2010, p. 32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Layha for the Mujahideen, 2010, above note 16, Rule 65.

31 Additional Protocol I, Art. 57; J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, above note 1, Vol. I, Rule 15.

32 See, for analysis, Xiaodong, He, ‘The Chinese humanitarian heritage and the dissemination and of and education in international humanitarian law in the Chinese People's Liberation Army’, in International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 83, No. 841, 2001, pp. 141–153Google Scholar.

33 ‘Agreement on the Civilian Protection Component of the International Monitoring Team’, 27 October 2009, Art. 1(a).

34 Additional Protocol I, Art. 51(5)(b); J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, above note 1, Vol. I, Rule 14.

35 ‘Agreement on Peace between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’, 22 June 2001, Art. B3.

36 Cf. J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, above note 1, Vol. I, Rules 132 and 133.

37 NDFP, NDFP's Defense of the Rights of the Filipino Child, Publication of the NDFP Human Rights Monitoring Committee, 2005, p. 9Google Scholar.

38 Additional Protocol II, Art. 4(3)(c).

39 ‘Footpaths to democracy: toward a new Sierra Leone’, 1995.

40 FMLN, The Legitimacy of Our Methods of Struggle, Inkworks Press, Berkeley, 1988, pp. 10–14Google Scholar.

41 See e.g. SCSL, Prosecutor v. Sesay, Kallon and Gbao, above note 15; Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, 31 March 2011.

42 See Olivier Bangerter, ‘Disseminating and implementing international humanitarian law within organized armed groups: measures armed groups can take to improve respect for international humanitarian law’, in International Institute of Humanitarian Law, Non-state Actors and International Humanitarian Law: Organized Armed Groups: A Challenge for the Twenty-first Century, FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2010, pp. 187, 192, and 196.

43 Layha for the Mujahideen, above note 16, Rules 11 and 12.

44 Common Article 3; Additional Protocol II, Arts 4 and 5; Additional Protocol I, Art. 75.

45 Common Article 3; Additional Protocol II, Art. 4; Additional Protocol I, Art. 75; J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, above note 1, Vol. I, Rule 96.

46 See Ejército de Liberación, Declaración sobre el Derecho Internacional Humanitario, 15 July 1995.

47 Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista, Qué es humanizar el conflict colombiano?, 1 May 1996, quoted in Pierre Gassmann, ‘Colombia: persuading belligerents to comply with international norms’, in Simon Chesterman (ed.), Civilians in War, Lynne Rienner Publishers, London, 2001, p. 73.

48 Additional Protocol I, Art. 51(2); Additional Protocol II, Art. 13; J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Volume I: Rules, above note 1, Rule 1.

49 Additional Protocol I, Art. 51(3); Additional Protocol II, Art. 13(3).

50 See, in particular, ICRC, ‘Interpretive guidance on the notion of direct participation in hostilities under international humanitarian law’, in International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 90, No. 872, 2008, pp. 991–1042CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But see, for critical views of the ICRC interpretive guidance, the contributions to the symposium in New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, Vol. 42, 2010, pp. 637–769.

51 ICRC, above note 50; New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, above note 50.

52 ‘PKK Statement to the United Nations’, above note 6.

53 NDFP, ‘Declaration of Undertaking’, above note 8.

54 Ibid.

55 ‘Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary-General’, 25 January 2005, para. 422.

56 See J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, above note 1, Vol. I, p. 17.

57 ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Philip Alston’, UN Doc. A/HRC/8/3/Add.2, 16 April 2008, para. 31.

58 Interview with Jakup Krasniqi, spokesman of the Kosovo Liberation Army, published in Koha Ditore, 12 July 1998 (translated from Albanian), Exhibit P00328 in International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Prosecutor v. Haradinaj et al., Case No. IT-04-84-T, Judgment, 3 April 2008.

59 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Prosecutor v. Bagosora et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Judgment and Sentence, 18 December 2008, paras. 2238–9; ‘Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur’, above note 55, para. 292.

60 SPLM/A, Penal and Disciplinary Laws, 4 July 1984, Section 29(1)(c), quoted in J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, above note 1, Vol. II, pp. 126–127.

61 Final Record of the Diplomatic Conference of Geneva of 1949: Volume II Section B, Federal Political Department, Berne, 1963, p. 44 (Norway), p. 49 (UK), and p. 322 (Norway). For criticism, see Volume II Section B, p. 50 (Burma) and p. 99 (Denmark).

62 Official Records of the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts, Geneva (1974–1977), Volume 5, Federal Political Department, Berne, 1978, p. 91, para. 6 (Norway); Volume 8, p. 359, para. 15 (Sweden); Volume 5, p. 187, paras. 20–21 (Bangladesh). For criticism, see Volume 8, p. 293, para. 41 (Burundi).

63 See J.-M. Henckaerts and L. Doswald-Beck, above note 1, Vol. I, Rules 106–108.

64 See e.g. Sandoz, Yves, Swinarski, Christophe, and Zimmerman, Bruno (eds), Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 1987, p. 1332Google Scholar; Solf, Waldermar, ‘The status of combatants in non-international armed conflicts under domestic law and transnational practice’, in American University Law Review, Vol. 33, No. 53, 1983, pp. 57–59Google Scholar; Green, Leslie C., The Contemporary Law of Armed Conflict, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2000, p. 318Google Scholar; Dieter Fleck, ‘The law of non-international armed conflicts’, in Dieter Fleck (ed.), The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008, p. 627.

65 The ‘Dix-Hill Cartel’ for the General Exchange of Prisoners of War entered into between the Union and Confederate Armies, 22 July 1862, reproduced in H.S. Levie (ed.), Documents on Prisoners of War, International Law Studies, Vol. 60, 1979, p. 34.

66 Siordet, Frédéric, ‘The Geneva Conventions and civil war’, in Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge, Supplement, Vol. 3, 1950, p. 140Google Scholar.

67 As cited in Padelford, Norman J., International Law and Diplomacy in the Spanish Civil Strife, Macmillan, New York, 1939, p. 597Google Scholar.

68 ‘Lettre de la délégation algérienne au Caire à David de Traz’, 23 février 1956, quoted in Perret, Françoise, ‘L'action du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge pendant la guerre d'Algérie (1954–1962)’, in International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 86, 2004, p. 926Google Scholar.

69 Arnold Fraleigh, ‘The Algerian revolution as a case study in international law’, in Richard Falk (ed.), The International Law of Civil War, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1971, p. 196.

70 See Bedjaoui, Mohammed, Law and the Algerian Revolution, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Brussels, 1961, p. 215, n. 17Google Scholar; A. Fraleigh, above note 69, pp. 179 and 196.

71 Rosas, Allan, The Legal Status of Prisoners of War, Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki, 1976, p. 196Google Scholar.

72 ‘External activities’, in International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 7, 1967, p. 536.

73 Cited in Churchill Ewumbue-Monono, ‘Respect for international humanitarian law by armed non-state actors in Africa’, in International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 88, No. 864, 2006, p. 907Google Scholar.

74 See McCoubrey, Hilaire, International Humanitarian Law, Dartmouth, Aldershot, 1990, p. 175Google Scholar.

75 FMLN, above note 40, pp. 6–7.

76 ‘PKK Statement to the United Nations’, above note 6.

77 National Transitional Council, ‘The treatment of detainees and prisoners’, 25 March 2011.

78 Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series 1, Volume 17, Part 2, p. 69.

79 ‘Instructions for the government of armies of the United States in the field’, 24 April 1863, Section III.

80 For the text of the declaration, see F. Siordet, above note 66, pp. 139–140.

81 Padelford, Norman J., ‘International law and the Spanish civil war’, in American Journal of International Law, Vol. 31, 1937, p. 226CrossRefGoogle Scholar, citing a report in the New York Times of 10 August 1936. See also Ann Van Wynen Thomas and A. J. Thomas, ‘International legal aspects of the civil war in Spain, 1936–39’, in R. Falk, above note 69, p. 122.

82 Bugnion, François, ‘Jus ad bellum, jus in bello and non-international armed conflicts’, in Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, Vol. 6, pp. 167–198CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 A. Rosas, above note 71, p. 149.

84 F. Bugnion, above note 82.

85 A. Fraleigh, above note 69, p. 196; A. Rosas, above note 71, p. 149.

86 Letter of November 1959, quoted in Veuthey, Michel, ‘La guérilla: le problème du traitement des prisonniers’, in Annales d’Études Internationales, Vol. 3, 1972, p. 130Google Scholar. The English text that appears in M. Bedjaoui, above note 70, p. 149, reads in the relevant part: ‘rebels captured with guns in their hands, guiltless of any crimes of terrorism before joining a rebel group, are not prosecuted but are interned in military camps. They are treated as members of an enemy army’.

87 ICRC, The ICRC and the Algerian Conflict, ICRC, Geneva, 1962Google Scholar, cited in A. Rosas, above note 71, p. 149.

88 ‘Operational Code of Conduct for the Nigerian Army’, July 1967, para. 4(e), reproduced in Kirk-Greene, A. H. M., Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria: A Documentary Sourcebook 1966–1969: Volume I, Oxford University Press, London, 1971, pp. 455–456Google Scholar.

89 ‘Note from the Nigerian Minister of Defence to the ICRC delegation in Lagos, 14 May 1970, ICRC Archives, file 219 (186); ICRC Annual Report 1970, 10’, cited in F. Bugnion, above note 82.

90 Agreement No. 1 of 22 May 1992, para. 2.4, reproduced in Marco Sassòli and Antoine A. Bouvier (eds.), How Does Law Protect in War?, ICRC, Geneva, 2006, p. 1765.

91 UK Ministry of Defence, The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004, pp. 398 and 390Google Scholar.