War Crimes Committed in Non-International Armed Conflicts

Abstract

The international society of the 21st century has made it imperative to eliminate impunity for international crimes. To this end, a number of mechanisms have been created to repress and punish crimes against peace, humanity, and war crimes. At the same time, the classification of war crimes committed during non-international armed conflict is an intellectual exercise for the perpetrators of justice, who face essential difficulties in classifying the actions of atypical participants in armed conflict. Contemporary armed conflicts are markedly different from the armed conflicts known to international society in the 19th and 20th centuries when the laws and customs of war were developed. In this article, we aim to elucidate which rules of international humanitarian law apply to qualify the conduct of participants in non-international armed conflicts.