Will-o'-the Wisp? The Search for Law in Non-International Armed Conflicts

Abstract

I n his remarks as a member of the Types of NlACs and Applicable Law Panel at the Naval War College's International Law Conference on Non-International Armed Conflict in the 21st Century, held from June 21 to 23, 2011, David Graham described the lawofnon-internationaI armed conflict as being located at the "vanishing point of the law of war." This is not surprising, because. as Graham further noted, States resist the application of international law to their struggles with rebels. In particular, they resist according status to rebels by applying the law of armed conflict (LOAC) to them. Rather, they prefer to deal with rebels under their own national criminal laws. free from any constraints that might be imposed by the law of armed conlliet. For example. Charles Garraway, speaking on the same panel as Graham, pointed out that the United Kingdom never acknowledged "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland as an "armed conflict" to which the law of armed conflict might apply. From a historical perspective, express treaty law governing non-international armed conflict was formerly virtually non-existent. After the carnage of World War II, and the extreme brutality of the Nazi Germany fo rces, however, there was a