“All cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance” (ICRC, 1949, Article 2).The category of IAC encompasses a broad range of international hostilities, including, but not limited to: Article 6(2) of the Fourth Convention stipulates that the Convention ceases to apply when there is objective evidence of “the general close of military operations,” and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ruled that International Humanitarian Law “extends beyond the cessation of hostilities until a general conclusion of peace is reached” (ICTY, 1995: para. By extension, the termination of IAC is based on evidence on the ground and not a ceasefire or peace agreement (ICRC, 2016). (The Geneva Conventions refer to States that are party to the Conventions as ‘High Contracting Parties’.) International armed conflict is conceptually broader and more flexible than the notion of war between States, because IAC is based on objective and factual criteria and does not rely on the formal declaration of war (ICRC, 2016).
Additional DescriptionĬommon Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 defined International Armed Conflict (IAC) as, “all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.” IAC “exists whenever there is a resort to armed force between States” (ICTY, 1995) and “can always be assumed when parts of the armed forces of two States clash with each other” (Schindler, 1979). International armed conflict covers all cases of declared war and other de facto armed conflict between two or more States, even if the state of war is not recognised by one of them and/or the use of armed force is unilateral (ICRC, 2016).
0 kommentar(er)
