This chapter provides an introduction to all three situations - international armed conflict non-international armed conflict and occupation - and highlights specific questions and challenges that arise in identifying and characterizing these types of conflicts. In addition, LOAC applies to all situations of belligerent occupation, which fall within the paradigm of international armed conflict. 16 Note that Ferraro uses ‘armed conflict with a double legal classification’ (‘When a foreign power intervenes in support of a non-state party over which it does not have overall control, as the law of IAC and the law of NIAC apply in parallel in accordance with the fragmented approach advocated by the ICRC’: ibid 1251). ![]() The definition of armed conflict for each type of conflict is not the same, creating different triggers for the application of LOAC. International armed conflict is conflict between or among two or more States, and non-international armed conflict refers to conflicts between a State and one or more non-State armed groups or among such non-State groups. More generally, the study of organized crime and criminal violence should be more actively integrated into the broader analysis of collective organized armed violence in and beyond conflict areas.ĭr Ekaterina Stepanova (Russia) is a Lead Researcher on armed conflicts, terrorism and the political economy of conflicts at the Institute of the World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.The 1949 Geneva Conventions endeavor to address all instances of armed conflict, which fall into two primary categories of armed conflict that trigger the application of LOAC: (1) international armed conflict and (2) non-international armed conflict. Such campaigns of criminal violence, often accompanied by intense anti-criminal violence by the state, deserve a category of their own in crime and conflict analysis. The case of drug trafficking-related violence in Mexico shows that, even in the absence of conflict over government or territory, large-scale campaigns of criminal violence can pose as great a threat to human security as armed conflict. Finding political solutions to conflicts should take priority as the main precondition for rebuilding or extending functional state capacity that is essential for effectively tackling organized crime. This explains why the fight against organized, especially transnational, crime should not be divorced from conflict resolution efforts. Despite there being drug-related violence in other countries, the panelists focused on the case of Mexico in order to isolate it from other types of armed. The most common type of enslavement in war zones was the use of child soldiers. In such conflict areas, organized crime and the shadow economy can only be effectively addressed once the state has already regained some basic elements of functionality, such as the ability to provide minimal law and order. Slavery and human trafficking are present in 90 per cent of modern wars. ![]() The case of Afghanistan shows the multifunctional role that the deeply embedded opium economy plays in conflict and post-conflict environments: not only financing armed opposition groups, but yielding profits to most major local politico-military actors, including those loyal to the government, alongside criminal trafficking networks. While overall global crime levels increase slowly, 2009 saw a notable rise in some types of transnational crime, including in armed conflict.Īs demonstrated by the rising piracy based in Somalia, high-profile criminal business in some conflict settings may have even broader transnational implications and resonance than the conflict itself. Decline in numbers of armed conflicts since the early 1990s has not been matched by a global decline in homicide rates. On a global level, criminal violence is far more widespread than organized political violence. In a complex web of fragmented violence, militias and other local powerbrokers fight for control of power and resources and exploit opportunities offered by insecurity and war economy. The data provided is one of the most accurate and well-used data-sources on global armed conflicts and its definition of armed conflict is becoming a standard in how conflicts are systematically defined and studied. ![]() Traditional distinctions between politico-military groups contesting control over territory or government and criminal actors prioritizing illicit profit become less relevant in conflict areas, especially in dysfunctional or failed states. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) has recorded ongoing violent conflicts since the 1970s. Growing reliance by armed non-state actors on shadow economic activity contributes to the erosion of boundaries between political and criminal violence. Criminal groups and profit-driven motives account for a substantial proportion of violence in many areas of armed conflict.
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