Abstract
Contemporary trends of warfare have witnessed a so-called ‘civilian footprint’ in support of military operations while battlefields have increasingly shifted towards urban areas. International humanitarian law established a framework through which civilians are protected from direct attack ‘unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities’. Three key areas have traditionally been associated with the analysis of direct participation in hostilities (‘DPH’): civilian legal status, what behaviour amounts to DPH, and what modalities govern this loss of protection. This article will focus on the latter and attempt to create a feasible and practical framework capable of harnessing the temporal scope of DPH and limit the so-called ‘revolving door phenomenon’. The framework developed in this article will account for criteria that could and should aid decision-making on the battlefield, most notably causal associations between individuals and DPH acts and the physical or non-physical nature of DPH acts’ deployments.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1 |
Pages (from-to) | 410-446 |
Number of pages | 47 |
Journal | Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2020 |