Losing the Forest for the Trees: Syria, Law and the Pragmatics of Conflict Recognition

54 Pages Posted: 28 Mar 2012 Last revised: 3 Nov 2013

See all articles by Laurie R. Blank

Laurie R. Blank

Emory University School of Law

Geoffrey S. Corn

Texas Tech University School of Law

Date Written: March 27, 2012

Abstract

Since the advent of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the international community has steadily expanded and reinforced the application of the law of armed conflict to these situations to regulate state and opposition conduct during such conflicts for the clear and imperative purpose of protecting the victims of these hostilities. Today, it is simply axiomatic that the law of armed conflict regulates the conduct of hostilities and the protection of persons during all armed conflicts, whether inter- or intra-state. As important as this development has been for limiting the suffering associated with war, it is equally axiomatic that the LOAC plays no role absent a situation that rises to the level of armed conflict. Accordingly, the increasingly robust package of international humanitarian protections the law mandates are not triggered if the facts on the ground do not support an objective determination of armed conflict.

The current situation in Syria holds the potential to become a pivotal moment in the development of this law. The ongoing brutality reminds the world of the importance of extending international humanitarian regulation into the realm of non-international armed hostilities; however, the very chaos produced by those hostilities reveals critical fault lines in the current approach to determining the existence of an armed conflict. Most people, if asked to describe what is happening in Syria, would use terms such as civil war or something comparable. Indeed, it is almost incomprehensible that those caught up in the chaos – government soldiers, dissident fighters, innocent civilians, journalists, foreign observers – would seriously question the assertion that they were involved in a “war”. And yet the international legal discourse evinces a clear reluctance to acknowledge the existence of armed conflict. Rather, the international community speaks of massive human rights violations, repression, even massacres – but not war or armed conflict. This reluctance highlights a clear disparity between the object and purpose of the law of armed conflict and the increasingly legalized and formalistic interpretation of the law’s triggering provisions. This is especially discouraging in light of the motivation for adopting the “armed conflict” trigger: mitigate the impact of technical legal formulas when determining the applicability of humanitarian protections.

Focusing on the events in Syria, this article will critique the overly technical approach to the definition of non-international conflict — based on the Tadic framework of intensity and organization — that is currently in vogue and how this approach undermines the original objective of Common Article 3. The impact of this “elements” approach is apparent in a recent report by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry for Syria. In stating that the situation in Syria is not an armed conflict, the Commission of Inquiry explained that the opposition parties in Syria were not sufficiently organized as to satisfy these elements. The effect is that the world is witnessing a retrograde of international humanitarian efficacy: Syria appears to be a lawless conflict like those that inspired the adoption of Common Article 3; one in which the regime employs its full arsenal of combat capability to shell entire cities and neighborhoods at will, block the provision of humanitarian assistance, and target journalists and medical personnel directly. The law of armed conflict is specifically designed to address exactly this type of conduct. Human rights law, which applies in the absence of an armed conflict, simply does not contemplate such massive uses of military power and therefore does not contain, for example, an obligation for states to allow access for humanitarian relief organizations or a prohibition on targeting medical personnel.

In the first section, this article will analyze the object and purpose of the law of armed conflict with respect to non-international armed conflicts and will highlight the goals of the drafters of the Geneva Conventions in establishing a pragmatic triggering mechanism for the application of the law. In particular, this section will demonstrate why a broad conception of non-international conflict is essential to contain brutality historically endemic during such conflicts. The second section will utilize the same approach with respect to the specific factors the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia set forth in the Tadic case: intensity and organization. Rather than a technical set of elements and checklists, these factors should serve as a conceptual guidepost for a totality of the circumstances assessment of the existence of non-international conflict and how to distinguish these situations from lower level types of violence that do not trigger the law of armed conflict, such as riots and internal disturbances. The object and purpose of the law forms a key framework for defining intensity and organization, for understanding how they relate to each other and combine to manifest an armed conflict, and for recognizing how other factors, such as the government’s response, affect our perception of intensity and organization. Together, these two layers of analysis will demonstrate the need for a conceptual – rather than technical – framework guided by the object and purpose of the law. The current discourse on Syria highlights the dangers of allowing over-legalization to override – and undermine – logic, with the obvious deleterious impact on human life.

Keywords: Syria, law of war, law of armed conflict, internal conflict, civilians, common article 3, non-international armed conflict

Suggested Citation

Blank, Laurie R. and Corn, Geoffrey S., Losing the Forest for the Trees: Syria, Law and the Pragmatics of Conflict Recognition (March 27, 2012). Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 46, p. 693-746, 2013, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2029989

Laurie R. Blank (Contact Author)

Emory University School of Law ( email )

1301 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States
404-712-1711 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.emory.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/laurie-blank.html

Geoffrey S. Corn

Texas Tech University School of Law ( email )

3311 18th Street
School of Law
Lubbock, TX 79409
United States
8322442204 (Phone)

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