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Military Subcontractors under International Humanitarian Law ― A Contribution to the Distinction between Combatants and Civilians

Military Subcontractors under International Humanitarian Law ― A Contribution to the Distinction... I. Introduction International humanitarian law distinguishes between combatants and civilians. The first are legitimate targets in combat but are also granted privileged Prisoner of War status when captured. The latter are protected from being direct targets but enjoy a lesser degree of protection when directly participating in hostilities. The principle of distinction, which envisages protecting civilians by clearly separating them from combatants, governs this fundamental trade-off between being a legitimate and easy target and achieving privileged and clearly regulated status when falling into the hands of the enemy. The current trend of contracting or 'outsourcing' tasks perceived at the core of armed forces to private military companies challenges the traditional understanding of distinction. Unresolved and disputed legal issues abound in the delineations between combatants and civilians, among others the distinction between collective and individual criteria for determining combatancy, the temporal dimension of civilians directly participating in conflict and the status of such civilians under the laws of war. The focus of this work will be on those legal issues necessary to address the status of subcontractors under international humanitarian law, above all the criteria for establishing direct participation of civilians in hostilities. In the first section of this paper http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Austrian Review of International and European Law Online Brill

Military Subcontractors under International Humanitarian Law ― A Contribution to the Distinction between Combatants and Civilians

Austrian Review of International and European Law Online , Volume 10 (1): 22 – Jan 1, 2007
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
eISSN
1573-6512
DOI
10.1163/157365105X00043
Publisher site
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Abstract

I. Introduction International humanitarian law distinguishes between combatants and civilians. The first are legitimate targets in combat but are also granted privileged Prisoner of War status when captured. The latter are protected from being direct targets but enjoy a lesser degree of protection when directly participating in hostilities. The principle of distinction, which envisages protecting civilians by clearly separating them from combatants, governs this fundamental trade-off between being a legitimate and easy target and achieving privileged and clearly regulated status when falling into the hands of the enemy. The current trend of contracting or 'outsourcing' tasks perceived at the core of armed forces to private military companies challenges the traditional understanding of distinction. Unresolved and disputed legal issues abound in the delineations between combatants and civilians, among others the distinction between collective and individual criteria for determining combatancy, the temporal dimension of civilians directly participating in conflict and the status of such civilians under the laws of war. The focus of this work will be on those legal issues necessary to address the status of subcontractors under international humanitarian law, above all the criteria for establishing direct participation of civilians in hostilities. In the first section of this paper

Journal

Austrian Review of International and European Law Online – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2007

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