En DIH, le réfugié ne fait pas l'objet d'une protection spéciale, sous réserve de quelques dispositions que nous examinerons plus loin. Il n'existe pas non plus de définition particulière du réfugié en tant que personne protégée par le DIH. Le réfugié est avant tout une personne civile qui est protégée à ce titre par le DIH et selon la systématique prévue par le DIH pour la protection des personnes civiles. La IVe Convention de Genève se borne en fait à retenir le critère de l'absence de la protection de tout gouvernement. Le terme «réfugié» est done pris dans un sens large. En droit international public, deux catégories de réfugiés sont définies, auxquelles il convient d'ajouter une troisiéme catégorie qui y est couramment assimilée. Ces trois catégories sont:

II s'agit des réfugiés au sens de la Convention des Nations Unies relative au statut des réfugiés du 28 juillet 1951, de son Protocole du 31 janvier 1967 ainsi qu'au sens du Statut du Haut Commissariat des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés (HCR).

Socrates recommended that one should begin a dissertation by denning one's terms.

For some time now, the name, “humanitarian law”, has been used to describe the large body of public international law derived from humanitarian sentiments and centred upon the protection of the individual.

The term has both a broad and a narrow sense. In the broad sense, international humanitarian law consists of those rules of international conventional and customary law which ensure respect for the individual and promote his development to the fullest possible extent compatible with law and order and, in time of war, with military necessities.

In October 2015, by co-sponsoring United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1 entitled “Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka”, the Sri Lankan government formally committed to embarking on a transitional justice process following three decades of armed conflict. Several thousand people allegedly disappeared during this period, often in connection with the armed conflict or as a result of internal disturbances. It is in this context that the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) was operationalized in 2018. This article discusses the nature of tracing investigations into the fate and whereabouts of missing persons of the type to be carried out by the OMP. It argues that these investigations, while ostensibly pursuing a humanitarian approach, cannot be artificially and hermetically separated from criminal justice processes. Further, it seeks to demonstrate that an integrated approach whereby strong linkages with criminal processes are provided for and encouraged best serves the interests of truth and justice.

This article discusses some of the challenges that may be encountered by companies seeking to adhere to the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights when operating in conflict-affected countries. The authors argue that corporate respect for human rights may not be sufficient to correct or compensate for state failure and also suggest that the leverage or influence enjoyed by individual companies in relation to the conduct of security forces and host governments may be limited, particularly in times of crisis. There is therefore a need for a collective approach to human rights risks in conflict-affected countries, and this should focus on public security sector reform and good governance as well as on corporate due diligence.

Since their publication in the 1950s and 1980s respectively, the Commentaries on the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 have become a major reference for the application and interpretation of those treaties. The International Committee of the Red Cross, together with a team of renowned experts, is currently updating these Commentaries in order to document developments and provide up-to-date interpretations of the treaty texts. Following a brief overview of the methodology and process of the update as well as a historical background to the Second Geneva Convention, this article addresses the scope of applicability of the Convention, the type of vessels it protects (in particular hospital ships and coastal rescue craft), and its relationship with other sources of international humanitarian law and international law conferring protection to persons in distress at sea. It also outlines differences and commonalities between the First and the Second Conventions, including how these have been reflected in the updated Commentary on the Second Convention. Finally, the article highlights certain substantive obligations under the Convention and how the updated Commentary addresses some of the interpretive questions they raise.

In this contribution, I will identify the main issues relevant for the applicability and application of international humanitarian law (IHL) in military operations under the command of the European Union (EU) and I will briefly describe the EU's practice and policy in this respect.1

This selection of photos is meant as an appeal from the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum to remember the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was compiled by museum director Akitoshi Nakamura based on the collection at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.1 Readers are invited to visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and spend some time viewing its collection of over 1,000 photographs and remnants from the city at that time to get a sense of what happened before and after the atomic bombing that summer seventy years ago, and how devastating the atomic bomb's destructive effects were.

This article addresses the situation of Mexican cartels in relation to the applicability of international humanitarian law (IHL). The analysis starts with a theoretical examination of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia criteria on intensity of violence and level of organization established for assessing the existence of an organized armed group in the context of a non-international armed conflict. The article further examines legal and non-legal literature with the purpose of providing elements to consider the rightness of applying IHL to criminal organizations, also considering similar scenarios in Latin America. The aim of this assessment is to provide additional elements for the consideration of whether IHL is suitable when addressing confrontations between certain criminal gangs and States. Additionally, the article assesses how the commercial purposes of these groups affect their organization and the nature of the violence in which they engage.

While the dominant human rights discourse on transitional justice constitutes a mix of reinforcing aims that seek to “make peace with” a violent past, this article complicates this notion by exploring how affective memories can prevent individuals from envisioning a future for themselves in which their individual and their nation's past is safely left behind. In the context of ongoing debates over whether to remember or forget a country's traumatic past, the article will show how affective memories of violence and disappearance prevail and disrupt the reconciliation paradigm, and need to be taken into account in transitional justice processes.

This article clarifies the control a State should have over an armed group for the triggering act of an international armed conflict and for the internationalization of non-international armed conflicts in international humanitarian law. It explains the reasons for the distinction between these two types of attribution and details the specificities of each test, with an innovative approach. The author proposes new control tests for both triggering and internationalization, rejecting the effective and overall control tests regarding internationalization proposed by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. For instance, regarding the internationalization of a non-international armed conflict, a general and strict control test is proposed. Finally, this article addresses specific issues like the difficult question of the control required for an occupation through an armed group.

Governments are principally responsible for the implementation of international human rights and humanitarian law during periods of armed conflict. During non-international armed conflicts, governments and armed opposition groups each bear responsibility for their obedience to those norms.

International organizations can encourage the participants in armed conflicts to respect human rights and humanitarian law. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has long played a leading role in working for the application of humanitarian law during armed conflicts; it has also begun to refer to human rights law in situations of internal strife or tensions not covered by international humanitarian law. The United Nations General Assembly, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, and several other intergovernmental organizations have occasionally attempted to secure respect for human rights law during armed conflicts and have referred on an irregular basis to humanitarian law in such endeavors. The UN Security Council has almost exclusively used humanitarian law in its decisions.