The “General Close of Military Operations” as the Benchmark for the Declassification of Armed Conflicts and the End of the Applicability of International Humanitarian Law

Abstract When does an armed conflict end? When does the specific body of law applicable to such a situation — namely, international humanitarian law (IHL) — cease to apply? There is, to date, no clear-cut answer to these questions in treaty law but, rather, a functional approach to the matter. Anchored in wider research related to the temporal scope of applicability of IHL, this contribution demonstrates how the notion of the “general close of military operations,” which appears in Article 6, paragraph 2, of Geneva Convention IV and in Article 3(b) of Additional Protocol I, fulfills the function of determining that any armed conflict has ended.