Armed conflict is a long-term period of intense fighting involving military forces in which there are significant civilian casualties and other serious impacts on people’s lives. It carries immediate and severe implications for civilian populations, who are often killed or injured, treated without dignity, arbitrarily detained or separated from family members, forced to flee their homes, or denied access to supplies essential for survival.
The emergence of armed conflicts is linked to a wide range of political, economic and social factors, such as power struggles, governance issues, the exploitation of natural resources and economic disparities. Ethnic and religious tensions, as well as marginalization and oppression of certain societal groups, can also precipitate conflict. These underlying drivers of armed conflict, in turn, fuel each other and lead to violent clashes between societal groups.
One of the first transformations in the law of armed conflict was when it became possible for civilians to take up arms and engage in organized resistance against an invading army or occupying force (Levee en masse). This type of armed conflict was recognized by the legal treaty defining the term ‘armed conflict’: the 1864 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field.
As a result of the decolonization process, some dependent territories fought for their independence from colonial powers in armed conflicts known as wars of national liberation. During this time, the law of armed conflict also extended to include some situations of rebellion against a State, which were regarded as a new kind of international armed conflict, and provided combatant status to individuals who took up arms to fight for their country’s freedom (Opinion on the Law of Armed Conflicts, 2024). This type of armed conflict was later defined by the Second Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts.
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