Military, War, and Peace Commons^™

Two Sides Of The Combatant Coin: Untangling Direct Participation In Hostilities From Belligerent Status In Non-International Armed Conflicts, Geoffrey S. Corn, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Determining who qualifies as a lawful object of attack in contemporary military operations against non-state belligerents is an increasingly demanding challenge. While it is axiomatic that only persons who qualify as either belligerents or civilians taking a direct part in hostilities fall into this category, the nature, and indeed goal, of counter-insurgencies blurs the line between civilians protected from deliberate attack and belligerents subject to attack. The difficulty in distinguishing the protected (civilians) from the unprotected (belligerents and civilians taking a direct part in hostilities) does not, however, warrant a fundamentally different targeting paradigm in counterinsurgency operations (a non-international armed …