Unlawful/Unprivileged Combatant, Armed Conflict and International Law in the 21St Century: Slipping Through the Loopholes of the Geneva Conventions?
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Faculty of Law Ghent University Academic Year 2009-2010 Unlawful/unprivileged combatant, armed conflict and international law in the 21st century: Slipping through the loopholes of the Geneva Conventions? A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Law by Kenny Lannoy (20053693) (Major National & International Public Law and Environmental Law) Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Frank Maes Commissioner: Ms. Nicole de Moor Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the help of a few people. Therefore I would like to thank those people who supported me in writing this dissertation. In the first place, my gratitude goes to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Frank Maes, for giving me the opportunity to write about this subject. Furthermore, I would like to thank Mr. Piet Willems for his guidance and other advice during the first year of this undertaking. In the second year, this task was taken over by Ms. Nicole de Moor. By reading my drafts, she provided me with linguistic, substantive and structural advice. It has to be said she did this with dedication. In addition, I would also like to express my gratitude to Mrs. Frits Devinck. She mainly focused on the grammatical correctness of the used language. Nonetheless, as a layman in the field of international humanitarian law, she also gave advice about the logical composition of this thesis. In the last place, I am grateful to my parents, brother and friends who supported me during the progress of this thesis. 1 Table of contents Table of contents ................................................................................................................................2 List of abbreviations ...........................................................................................................................4 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................5 1. Armed conflict ................................................................................................................................6 1.1. International armed conflict ......................................................................................................6 1.2. Non-international armed conflict ..............................................................................................8 1.2.1. Armed conflicts under art. 3 common to the Geneva Conventions ......................................9 1.2.2. Armed conflicts under Additional Protocol II ................................................................... 11 2. Combatants and civilians............................................................................................................... 13 2.1. Combatants ............................................................................................................................ 13 2.1.1. Status .............................................................................................................................. 13 2.1.2. Scope .............................................................................................................................. 15 2.1.3. Collective or individual? .................................................................................................. 18 2.2. Civilians ................................................................................................................................. 19 2.2.1. Status .............................................................................................................................. 19 2.2.2. Scope .............................................................................................................................. 22 3. Unlawful combatants .................................................................................................................... 24 3.1. In general ............................................................................................................................... 25 3.1.1. Unlawful combatants in international armed conflicts ...................................................... 25 3.1.2. Unlawful combatants in non-international armed conflicts ............................................... 32 3.2. Al Qaeda and the Taliban ....................................................................................................... 33 3.2.1. Nature of the conflict ....................................................................................................... 33 3.2.2. Al Qaeda ......................................................................................................................... 35 3.2.3. Taliban ............................................................................................................................ 38 3.2.3.1. Meeting the criteria for lawful combatancy ............................................................... 38 3.2.3.2. Is meeting the lawful combatancy criteria necessary? ................................................ 42 2 3.2.3.3. False arguments to deny the Taliban prisoner of war status ........................................ 42 3.2.3.4. Art. 5 G.C. III ........................................................................................................... 43 3.2.3.5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 45 3.3. Mercenaries............................................................................................................................ 46 3.3.1. The Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I and the Mercenaries Convention ............ 46 3.3.2. Other instruments for the elimination of mercenarism ...................................................... 50 3.3.3. Private military contractors/companies............................................................................. 51 3.3.4. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 51 3.4. Child soldiers ......................................................................................................................... 52 3.4.1. Status under the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols ....................................... 53 3.4.2. The ongoing endeavour towards a ban on child soldiers ................................................... 56 3.4.3. From theory to practice .................................................................................................... 59 3.4.4. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 60 3.5. Spies and saboteurs ................................................................................................................ 61 3.4.5. Spies ............................................................................................................................... 61 3.4.6. Saboteurs ......................................................................................................................... 64 Conclusion........................................................................................................................................ 65 Dutch summary ................................................................................................................................ 67 References ........................................................................................................................................ 68 1. Treaties and resolutions ............................................................................................................. 68 2. Jurisprudence ............................................................................................................................ 69 3. Books........................................................................................................................................ 69 4. Periodicals ................................................................................................................................ 69 5. Other ......................................................................................................................................... 71 3 List of abbreviations A.P. I Additional Protocol I A.P. II Additional Protocol II G.C. III Geneva Convention III G.C. IV Geneva Convention IV ICJ International Court of Justice ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross International Criminal Tribunal for the former ICTY Yugoslavia IHL International Humanitarian Law ISAF International Security Assistance Force NATO Northern Alliance Treaty Organisation UN United Nations the U.S. the United States of America 4 Introduction Since the United States and their Allies launched their war on terror, the concept of unlawful combatants has gained more prominence in the international debate. This debate was initiated when the Bush administration denied the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees prisoner of war status and stated that they were to be regarded as unlawful combatants.1 A lot of critique was formulated on this statement. Nevertheless, the history of unlawful combatants dates back to the beginning of the laws of war. The concept was not invented by the U.S. government.2 The purpose of this thesis is to examine on the one hand the scope of the concept of unlawful combatants and on the other hand the protection they are granted under international humanitarian law. IHL provides