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Can criminal organizations be non-State parties to armed conflict?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2022

Pablo Kalmanovitz
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Abstract

The motivations of armed groups are widely considered to be irrelevant for the applicability of international humanitarian law (IHL). As long as organized violence is of sufficient intensity, and armed groups have sufficient capacity to coordinate and carry out military operations, there is an armed conflict for purposes of international law. It follows that large-scale criminal organizations can, in principle, be treated legally on a par with political insurgent groups. Drug cartels in particular, if sufficiently armed and well organized, can constitute armed opposition groups in the legal sense when their confrontation with State forces is sufficiently intense. This article problematizes this interpretation. It corroborates standing legal doctrine in finding that subjective motives are not a sound basis to exclude the application of IHL, but it argues that a workable distinction can be made between the strategic logic and the organizational goals of criminal groups and those of political insurgents. Drawing on a growing body of empirical studies on the political economy of criminal violence, a strong presumption is defended against qualifying as armed conflict organized violence involving criminal organizations.

Keywords

criminal violenceorganized crimenon-international armed conflictTadić rulingthreshold of IHL applicationdrug traffickingdrug cartelsLatin America
Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 105 , Issue 923: Organized Crime , August 2023 , pp. 618 - 636
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the ICRC.

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Footnotes

†

The original version of this article was published with an error in the title. A notice detailing this has been published and the error rectified in the online PDF and HTML versions.

*

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the ISA 2019 annual conference in Toronto, the ICON-S 2021 Mundo Conference, and the workshop “International Law and Violence” held at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires in 2021. I am grateful to audiences in these venues, and in particular to Rob Blair, Alejandro Chehtman, Luis de la Calle, Julieta Lemaitre, James Patterson, Alejandro Rodiles and Sandesh Sivakumaran for valuable comments on earlier versions of the text. Financial support from the Asociación Mexicana de Cultura AC is gratefully acknowledged.

The advice, opinions and statements contained in this article are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ICRC. The ICRC does not necessarily represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement or other information provided in this article.

References

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8 Pablo Kalmanovitz and Alejandro Anaya-Muñoz, “To Invoke or not to Invoke: International Humanitarian Law and the ‘War on Drugs’ in Mexico”, unpublished manuscript, 2022.

9 See also Lima, Ximena Galvez, “Inked or Not: Maras and Their Participation in El Salvador's Recent Armed Conflict”, Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2019CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ryan, Kirsten Ortega, “‘Urban Killing Fields’: International Humanitarian Law, Gang Violence, and Armed Conflict on the Streets of El Salvador”, International and Comparative Law Review, Vol. 20, No. 1, 2020CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Geneva Academy's 2017 War Report did not qualify violence in El Salvador as a NIAC, but deems its own position “controversial”: see A. Bellal (ed.), The War Report: 2017, above note 7, p. 64.

10 ICTY, The Prosecutor v. Duško Tadić, Case No. IT-94-1-A, Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, 2 October 1995.

11 Sandesh Sivakumaran, The Law of Non-International Armed Conflict, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012, pp. 164–182; Anthony Cullen, The Concept of Non-International Armed Conflict in International Humanitarian Law, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010, pp. 117–158.

12 S. Sivakumaran, above note 11, p. 182.

13 ICRC, International Humanitarian Law and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts, Geneva, 2011, p. 11.

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20 P. Collier and A. Hoeffler, above note 14; Christopher Blattman and Edward Miguel, “Civil War”, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2010.

21 M. Kaldor, above note 15.

22 Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006.

23 Francisco Gutierrez Sanin and Elisabeth Jean Wood, “Ideology in Civil War: Instrumental Adoption and Beyond”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 51, No. 2, 2014.

24 Thomas Schelling, “What Is the Business of Organized Crime?”, in Thomas Schelling (ed.), Choice and Consequence, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1984.

25 Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley, Votes, Drugs, and Violence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2020; Angélica Durán-Martínez, The Politics of Drug Violence, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018.

26 Gustavo Duncan, Más que plata o plomo: El poder político del narcotráfico en Colombia y México Debate, Bogotá, 2014.

27 Nicholas Barnes, “Criminal Politics: An Integrated Approach to the Study of Organized Crime, Politics, and Violence”, Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 15, No. 4, 2017.

28 Enrique Desmond Arias, “The Impacts of Differential Armed Dominance of Politics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil”, Studies in Comparative Development, Vol. 48, No. 3, 2013; Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Conceptualizing Crime as Competition in State-Making and Designing an Effective Response”, Brookings Institution, 2010, available at: www.brookings.edu/on-the-record/conceptualizing-crime-as-competition-in-state-making-and-designing-an-effective-response/; N. Barnes, above note 27.

29 Angélica Durán-Martínez, “To Kill and Tell? State Power, Criminal Competition, and Drug Violence”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 59, No. 8, 2015; Javier Osorio, “The Contagion of Drug Violence: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of the Mexican War on Drugs”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 59, No. 8, 2015; Benjamin Lessing, “Logics of Violence in Criminal War”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 59, No. 8, 2015.

30 Benjamin Lessing, Making Peace in Drug Wars, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2018, pp. 37–81; G. Duncan, above note 26.

31 E. D. Arias, above note 28, p. 264.

32 N. Barnes, above note 27, p. 973.

33 Andrea Nill Sánchez, “Mexico's Drug ‘War’: Drawing a Line between Rhetoric and Reality”, Yale Journal of International Law, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2013, p. 488. The Limaj case at the ICTY is often cited as a key ruling on the irrelevance of motives for NIAC qualification. As the Tribunal held in para. 170, “the determination of the existence of an armed conflict is based solely on two criteria: the intensity of the conflict and organization of the parties[;] the purpose of the armed forces to engage in acts of violence or also achieve some further objective is, therefore, irrelevant”. And yet the ruling continues as follows: “[I]t is not apparent to the Chamber that the immediate purpose of the military apparatus of each side during the relevant period, was not directed to the defeat of the opposing party, even if some further or ultimate objective may also have existed. The two forces were substantially engaged in their mutual military struggle” (emphases added). Arguably, a background assumption in Limaj is that the non-State parties in a conflict aim for the defeat of their State opponents, an assumption that may not hold for organized criminal violence. ICTY, The Prosecutor v. Limaj et al., Case No. IT-03-66-T, Judgment (Trial Chamber), 30 November 2005, para. 170.

34 B. Lessing, above note 29; B. Lessing, above note 30.

35 Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley, “Why Did Drug Cartels Go to War in Mexico? Subnational Party Alternation, the Breakdown of Criminal Protection, and the Onset of Large-Scale Violence”, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 51, No. 7, 2018.

36 R. Snyder and A. Durán-Martínez, above note 16; A. Durán-Martínez, above note 29.

37 Eduardo Guerrero Gutiérrez, “Pandillas y cárteles: La gran alianza”, Revista Nexos, June 2010; A. Durán-Martínez, above note 25, pp. 14–18.

38 A. Durán-Martínez, above note 25, p. 18.

39 A. Nill Sánchez, above note 33, p. 483.

40 S. Kalyvas, above note 22.

41 Ibid., pp. 218–219.

42 G. Duncan, above note 26.

43 Ana Arjona, Nelson Kasfir and Zachariah Mampilly, Rebel Governance in Civil War, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015.

44 S. Sivakumaran, above note 11, pp. 167–170.

45 Ibid., pp. 170–172.

46 E. Guerrero Gutiérrez, above note 37; A. Durán-Martínez, above note 25.

47 Patrick Gallahue, “Mexico's ‘War on Drugs’: Real or Rhetorical Armed Conflict?”, Journal of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2011, p. 43.

48 A. Nill Sánchez, above note 33, pp. 485–486.

49 Víctor Manuel Sánchez Valdés and Manuel Pérez Aguirre, The Origin of the Zetas and Their Expansion in Northern Coahuila, Colegio de México, Mexico City, 2018.

50 Insight Crime, “Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG)”, available at: https://es.insightcrime.org/noticias-crimen-organizado-mexico/cartel-jalisco-nueva-generacion-cjng/.

51 A. Durán-Martínez, above note 25, p. 16.

52 Hyeran Jo, Compliant Rebels, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015; Jessica Stanton, Violence and Restraint in Civil War: Civilian Targeting in the Shadow of International Law, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016.

53 S. Sivakumaran, above note 11, pp. 174–180. There is some doctrinal debate on this claim: see A. Cullen, above note 11, pp. 155–157.

54 See e.g. P. Hauck and S. Peterke, above note 19, p. 411; C. Bergal, above note 6.

55 C. Bergal, above note 6, p. 1087.

56 Pierre Thielbörger, “The International Law of the Use of Force and Transnational Organised Crime”, in Pierre Hauck and Sven Peterke (eds), International Law and Transnational Organized Crime, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016, pp. 377–378.

57 ICRC, The Use of Force in Armed Conflicts: Interplay between the Conduct of Hostilities and Law Enforcement Paradigms, Geneva, 2013, p. iv.

58 ICRC, The Use of Force in Law Enforcement Operations, Geneva, 2022.

59 Nils Melzer, Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law, ICRC, Geneva, 2009, pp. 33–34, 72.

60 According to Hauck and Peterke, “the violence of organized crime and gangs, although worrying, is non-ideological and principally clandestine in nature and therefore does not usually destabilize a country in a way that would justify rating the situation as a public emergency”: P. Hauck and S. Peterke, above note 19, p. 431. As the Mexican case shows, however, organized criminal violence can escalate to levels that are deeply destabilizing. Militarization and its legal sanction in the form of NIAC qualification are not apt remedies but rather causes of such destabilization.

61 See, further, Rodiles, Alejandro, “Law and Violence in the Global South: The Legal Framing of Mexico's ‘Narco War’”, Journal of Conflict & Security Law, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2018CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley, “Federalism, Drugs, and Violence: Why Intergovernmental Partisan Conflict Stimulated Inter-Cartel Violence in Mexico”, Política y Gobierno, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2016.

63 Lieblich, Eliav, “Internal Jus ad Bellum”, Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 67, No. 3, 2016Google Scholar. Lieblich makes clear that the doctrine of internal jus ad bellum that he sketches remains far from crystallizing in international law.

64 Ibid., p. 742.

65 B. Lessing, above note 30; A. Durán-Martínez, above note 25; G. Trejo and S. Ley, above note 25, pp. 143–179; B. Phillips, above note 17. For a high-profile contribution in a similar vein from a policy perspective, see Global Commission on Drug Policy, War on Drugs: Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, Geneva, 2011.

66 G. Trejo and S. Ley, above note 62; J. Osorio, above note 29; B. Lessing, above note 29.

67 Sven Peterke and Joachim Wolf, “International Humanitarian Law and Transnational Organised Crime”, in P. Hauck and S. Peterke (eds), above note 56, pp. 400–402.

68 ICRC, “The ICRC's Role in Situations of Violence below the Threshold of Armed Conflict”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 96, No. 893, 2014Google Scholar.