Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Table of cases
- Table of treaties
- Table of Security Council resolutions
- Table of General Assembly resolutions
- Abbreviations
- 1 The framework
- 2 The preconditions of a NIAC
- 3 Thresholds and interaction of armed conflicts
- 4 Insurgent armed groups and individuals
- 5 Foreign intervention in a NIAC
- 6 Recognition
- 7 State responsibility
- 8 The principal LONIAC treaty provisions
- 9 Additional treaty texts
- 10 NIAC war crimes
- 11 LONIAC customary international law
- 12 LONIAC and human rights law
- Conclusions
- Index of persons
- Index of subjects
- References
4 - Insurgent armed groups and individuals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Table of cases
- Table of treaties
- Table of Security Council resolutions
- Table of General Assembly resolutions
- Abbreviations
- 1 The framework
- 2 The preconditions of a NIAC
- 3 Thresholds and interaction of armed conflicts
- 4 Insurgent armed groups and individuals
- 5 Foreign intervention in a NIAC
- 6 Recognition
- 7 State responsibility
- 8 The principal LONIAC treaty provisions
- 9 Additional treaty texts
- 10 NIAC war crimes
- 11 LONIAC customary international law
- 12 LONIAC and human rights law
- Conclusions
- Index of persons
- Index of subjects
- References
Summary
The concept
Participants in NIAC hostilities are either State or non-State actors. Ex hypothesi, insurgents – by revolting against the incumbent Government – are non-State actors. So are any members of organized armed groups fighting each other in the absence of any Government (see supra 87). State actors in a NIAC are those who are operating under governmental authority. They can be fighting on behalf of either (i) the Government of the State in the territory of which the conflict occurs (Ruritania); or (ii) the Government of any other country (Utopia) that militarily intervenes on behalf of the Ruritanian Government. Should there be other State actors (belonging to Arcadia) pitted in battle against the forces of Ruritania, what would ensue is an IAC, as distinct from a NIAC (see supra 161).
Common Article 3 (infra 409) refers to ‘[p]ersons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat’. The same language is used in Article 8(2)(c) of the Rome Statute (infra 559). The terminology here is based on the idea that ‘armed forces’ represent both sides, and they can therefore be either State or non-State actors.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Non-International Armed Conflicts in International Law , pp. 58 - 73Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
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