Ensuring Compliance by Non-State Actors with Rules of International Humanitarian Law on the Use of Weapons in NIAC: A Way to Follow? (original) (raw)

2011, Asia-Pacific Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law

Today, the majority of armed conflicts are waged within the state boundaries resulting in much destruction, ruin and victims. Notwithstanding significant advancement in the international legal regulation of armed conflicts between states, it should be recalled that there is only a limited number of the provisions of IHL treaties applicable to non- international armed conflicts (NIAC). Given this circumstance, few would doubt that ensuring compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) by all parties to NIAC, including non-state actors, becomes a major challenge. This challenge remains as urgent today as before. This article provides a brief account of existing definitions, legal rules, gaps and problems related to the compliance of NSAs with the humanitarian law applicable to an NIAC, then goes on to less explored issues such as the used of specific weapons by non-State armed groups, examples of this and threats posed by such use, and, finally, delineates the ways suggested to ensure the NSAs' proper compliance in this regard. The principal argument that the article proposes is this: despite the absence of a "solid" treaty-based grounding as it is traditionally understood in international law, as well as the existing problematic legal and political questions over armed groups' compliance with relevant IHL norms-and because of the very necessity of taking into proper account the reality of armed conflicts today - the question of non-State actors' compliance with IHL rules on the use of weapons should be given more consideration, and different ways aimed at ensuring such compliance should be sought.