Treat Them as They Deserve?!
Three Approaches to Armed Opposition Groups
under Current International Law
Veronika Bílková*
Abstract
Armed opposition groups, likewise other non-state actors, confront international
law with the challenge of their ‘otherness’. This challenge has been so far met in
three different ways, reflecting the diverging degree of participation and acceptability
that various armed opposition groups (national liberation movements, insurgent
groups in non-international armed conflicts, and criminal and terrorist groups)
show. The approaches international law adopts towards these three categories of
AOG differ considerably in the extent and content of rights bestowed upon the
groups’ members. This plurality is made possible by the flexibility of the international
legal personality concept, which is not a matter of simple presence and absence but
of degree. As such, it helps to ensure the dominance of the state over the ‘other’, but
fails to meet the needs of the wider international community. While there is no easy
solution to this problem, it is clear that any move forward has to include either a
moderation of the goals the legal regime pursues or a reassessment of some of its
premises and a more active incorporation of ‘otherness’.
Keywords: armed opposition groups; international humanitarian law; international
legal personality; jus ad bellum; jus in bello
Abbreviations: AOG – Armed Opposition Groups; IHL – International Humanitarian
Law; NSA – Non-State Actors
*
Lecturer in international law, Charles University, Prague.
4 HR&ILD 1 (2010) 111