About the author(s):
Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor at Utrecht University where she teaches IHL and IHRL. Before joining Utrecht University, she worked at the ICTY, ICC and Norton Rose Fulbright. She is the author of The Accountability of Armed Groups under Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2017) which won the 2018 Lieber Prize. She has written widely about the framework of law that applies to armed groups in non-international armed conflicts and is one of the editors of the Armed Groups and International Law blog.
On 25 November 2014, the ICRC organised a webinar to discuss the report ‘Use of Force in Armed Conflicts: Interplay between the Conduct of Hostilities and Law Enforcement’. Here is the recording of the event.
The Use of Force in Armed Conflicts report emerged out of an expert meeting convened by the ICRC January 2012 to shed light on the use of force in armed conflicts. The meeting sought to find the line dividing the conduct-of-hostilities and law-enforcement paradigms in situations of armed conflict. It paid special attention to non-international armed conflicts, during which the interplay between the two is particularly discernible.
The report is divided into three parts. First, it addresses the legal basis and distinguishing features of the two paradigms. Then, it introduces and discusses five case studies pertaining to the use of force; these studies were developed to illustrate some of the concrete legal and practical issues that arise in the field:
Case study 1: The use of force against potential targets (example of the isolated sleeping fighter)
Case study 2: Riots (where civilians and fighters are blended in with each other)
Case study 3: Fight against criminality
Case study 4: Escape attempts and rioting detainees