Dias & Heffes: New Typologies of Non-International Armed Conflict? An Analysis of Article 8(2)(f) of the Rome Statute

Leandro Dias & Ezequiel Heffes have posted New Typologies of Non-International Armed Conflict? An Analysis of Article 8(2)(f) of the Rome Statute (Festschrift für Yoram Danzinger, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Currently, international law refers to two different conventional legal sources in order to deal with the existence of a non–international armed conflict: Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and Article 1 of the 1977 Additional Protocol II. Yet, with the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC Statute), it was also recognized that certain war crimes could be committed during ‘armed conflicts not of an international character’. Article 8(2)(c) and (e) grants the ICC with jurisdiction ratione materiae where serious violations of Common Article 3 and other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in internal armed conflicts may have been committed. While the ICC Statute does not provide a more precise definition of the armed conflict in Article 8(2)(c), i.e. when serious violations of Common Article 3 may occur, it elucidates a definition in the case of serious violations of the laws and customs of war. The objective of this chapter is to clarify the threshold needed for the application of Article 8(2)(e) by focusing on the meaning of this provision. In doing so, it examines if indeed there are only as found in Common Article 3 and the 1977 Additional Protocol II, or if there is a third one included in the ICC Statute.