Conflict Classification in Ukraine: The Return of the “Proxy War”?

The article examines the exact conditions for classifying an armed conflict under international humanitarian law against the backdrop of the crisis in Ukraine, taking into account the difficult factual situation on the ground and the involvement of the different parties to the conflict. Apart from dealing with the requirements of an international or a non-international armed conflict, it looks again into the specific circumstances for the “internationalization” of an internal armed conflict. In doing so, the author revisits the various approaches found in the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice in its 1986 Nicaragua and 2007 Genocide judgments, as well as in the 1999 ICTY Tadić appeals judgment. Using the attribution regime of the Articles on State Responsibility, he then suggests a solution for determining the degree of control an outside State needs to have over the insurgent party of a non-international armed conflict in order to turn into an international one

Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law Volume 15, 2012

VIII, 256 p.online resource

Proxy agents, auxiliary forces, and sovereign defection: assessing the outcomes of using non-state actors in civil conflicts

This article interrogates the role of non-state armed actors in the Ukrainian civil conflict. The aim of this article is twofold. First, it seeks to identify the differences between the patterns of military intervention in Crimea (direct, covert intervention), and those in the South-East (mixed direct and indirect – proxy – intervention). It does so by assessing the extent of Russian troop involvement and that of external sponsorship to non-state actors. Second, it puts forward a tentative theoretical framework that allows distinguishing between the different outcomes the two patterns of intervention generate. Here, the focus is on the role of non-state actors in the two interventionist scenarios. The core argument is that the use of nonstate actors is aimed at sovereign defection. The article introduces the concept of sovereign defection and defines it as a break-away from an existing state. To capture the differences between the outcomes of the interventions in Crimea and South-East, sovereign defection is classified into two categories: inward and outward. Outward sovereign defection is equated to the territorial seizure of the Crimean Peninsula by Russian Special Forces, aided by existing criminal gangs acting in an auxiliary capacity. Inward sovereign defection refers to the external sponsorship of the secessionist rebels in South-East Ukraine and their use as proxy forces with the purpose of creating a political buffer-zone in the shape of a frozen conflict. To demonstrate these claims, the article analyses the configuration of the dynamics of violence in both regions. It effectively argues that, in pursuing sovereign defection, the auxiliary and proxy forces operate under two competing dynamics of violence, delegative and non-delegative, with distinct implications to the course and future of the conflict

The Conduct of Hostilities and International Humanitarian Law: Challenges of 21st Century Warfare International Law Association Study Group on the Conduct of Hostilities in the 21st Century

Armed conflicts evolve dynamically and the way wars are fought has changed significantly over time. The majority of contemporary armed conflicts involve a multitude of different actors with varying military capabilities. This asymmetry creates an incentive for the inferior party to use war tactics which violate rules of international humanitarian law in order to make up for disadvantages in matters relating to materiel, resources and fighting capacity. This links in with the observation that today’s armed conflicts (“new wars”) are often characterized not only by the objective to gain territory or military victory in the classical sense, but are rather often (also) about achieving independence, identity, ethnic cleansing, or spreading terror and gaining publicity. This being said, the traditional objectives of defeating enemy forces and gaining or maintaining control over territory are still highly relevant, including for non-State parties. For example, for the so-called Islamic State (IS) territorial control is a strategic priority. For State parties engaged in conflict with such groups, the objective is often to contain the threat posed by such tactics, regain and hold territories that such groups may have captured, degrade their ability to mount effective operations and ultimately to defeat them, which includes but is often not limited to a traditional military victory, whereby one side is forced to submit by superior force. Although international humanitarian law has already adapted in certain ways, for example, by providing rules for non-international armed conflicts (NIAC), one needs to keep in mind that IHL was originally designed to deal with interstate wars. What is more, in modern asymmetric armed conflicts the conduct of hostilities increasingly seems to take place in parallel with law enforcement operations. Thus, the central question is the extent to which the rules governing the conduct of hostilities need to be clarified, both in terms of their scope of application and their substantive aspects. Although some sub-aspects of this issue have been examined before, what is still missing is a coherent and more principled approach to the challenges of 21st century warfare. The central focus of the SG lies on the actual rules governing the conduct of hostilities, taking into account the three main areas highlighted above. In this context, it was not the aim of the SG to comprehensively deal with all of the various issues arising in relation to the conduct of hostilities, but to focus on selected issues where the SG felt that there is a need and/or potential for further clarification. Whereas API’s scope of application is limited by virtue of Article 49(3) API, the SG agreed that today it is widely accepted that the customary law rules governing the conduct of hostilities are applicable in all domains of warfare, i.e., land, air, sea as well as outer-space and cyber-space. Therefore, the SG decided to focus on three main issues related to the rules governing the conduct of hostilities: I. The meaning and interpretation of the term “Military Objectives;” II. “The Principle of Proportionality;” and III. “Precautions.

Evaluation of modelled net primary production using MODIS and landsat satellite data fusion

Background To improve estimates of net primary production for terrestrial ecosystems of the continental United States, we evaluated a new image fusion technique to incorporate high resolution Landsat land cover data into a modified version of the CASA ecosystem model. The proportion of each Landsat land cover type within each 0.004 degree resolution CASA pixel was used to influence the ecosystem model result by a pure-pixel interpolation method. Results Seventeen Ameriflux tower flux records spread across the country were combined to evaluate monthly NPP estimates from the modified CASA model. Monthly measured NPP data values plotted against the revised CASA model outputs resulted in an overall R2 of 0.72, mainly due to cropland locations where irrigation and crop rotation were not accounted for by the CASA model. When managed and disturbed locations are removed from the validation, the R2 increases to 0.82. Conclusions The revised CASA model with pure-pixel interpolated vegetation index performed well at tower sites where vegetation was not manipulated or managed and had not been recently disturbed. Tower locations that showed relatively low correlations with CASA-estimated NPP were regularly disturbed by either human or natural forces.</p