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Aerial View of the Persian Gulf / NASA
17 December 2019
Our new War Report article The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran: an International Armed Conflict of Low-Intensity analyses the June 2019 shooting down by Iran of a United States (US) military drone and the alleged US counter cyber-attack.
Written by Miloš Hrnjaz, Assistant Professor of International Law at the University of Belgrade and former Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy, the article details the recent incidents between the US and Iran in the Persian Gulf that culminated in June 2019 and provides a solid background to the overall US-Iran relationship since the beginning of the 20th century.
The article then discusses whether the shooting down by Iran of a US military drone and the subsequent alleged US counter cyber-attack can be classified as an IAC, and concludes that an IAC of low intensity took place between the two countries in June 2019, triggering the application of international humanitarian law (IHL) during that short time.
‘The author raises a series of interesting questions and challenges related to the classification of armed conflicts, including whether a single attack on an unarmed drone is enough to trigger the existence of an IAC’ underlines Dr Annyssa Bellal, Strategic Adviser on IHL and Senior Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy.
‘The article also highlights that cyber-attacks pose a serious classification challenge as states are reluctant to comment on their cyber operations, as shown in this specific case. While there is no doubt that cyber activities carried out by one state against another in conjunction with or in support of more classical military operations amount to an IAC, the key challenge is the usual lack of information concerning this kind of attacks and the official policies of many states to not disclose them’ she adds.
News
ICRC
Our new War Report article Iraq: Any Hope for Change? provides an overview of the non-international armed conflict in the country, including information about the classification of the conflict, its history, parties and developments in 2019.
News
CCPR Centre
After a reminder on mechanisms established by the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their additional Protocols of 1977, the paper summarily frames the relationship between IHL and international human rights law and assess the competence and practice of political mechanisms emanating from the Charter of the United Nations, as well as of universal and regional treaty-based mechanisms.
Event
Springer
This event marks the launch in Geneva of the book International Humanitarian Law and Non-State Actors: Debates, Law and Practice.
Short Course
ICRC
This short course aims to study, in depth, an emblematic example of the complexity of international humanitarian law and the challenges it raises: the classification of armed conflicts.
Short Course
ICRC
This short course discusses the protection offered by international humanitarian law (IHL) in non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) and addresses some problems and controversies specific to IHL of NIACs, including the difficulty to ensure the respect of IHL by armed non-state actors.
Project
MSF
This research aims at building a common understanding and vision as to how states and the relevant parts of the UN system can provide a concrete and practical framework to address human rights responsibilities of armed non-state actors.
Project
CCPR Centre
Resulting from traditional legal research and informal interviews with experts, the project aims at examining how – if at all possible – IHL could be more systematically, appropriately and correctly dealt with by the human rights mechanisms emanating from the Charter of the United Nations, as well from universal and regional treaties.
Publication
