DIRECT PARTICIPATION IN HOSTILITIES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
DIRECT PARTICIPATION IN HOSTILITIES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW

Author(s): Adrian Băncilă
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, International relations/trade, Military policy, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: Carol I National Defence University Publishing House
Keywords: Direct participation in hostilities; Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols; international humanitarian law; civilian; protection;
Summary/Abstract: Direct participation in hostilities is not limited to the personnel of the armed forces; as such, numerous dispositions of international military law refer to the possibility that civilians be attracted in the sphere of military operations. In this case the civilians lose their protection as civilians and eventually gain the protection reserved to war prisoners as combatants. Such civilians could include the persons that accompany the armed forces,without being a part of these forces (e.g. civilian military crew members, war correspondents,commercial navy or aviation crew members as well as the population which spontaneously takes up arms to repel an invading enemy). The ambiguity of the expression „direct participants to hostilities” as well as the apparition of new categories of combatants such as members of private military and security companies have led to the emergence of doctrinal and jurisprudential specifications in this field.

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