Status Of Unlawful Combatants And Their Protection Under International Humanitarian Law

ABSTRACT

The phenomenon of terrorism has brought so many challenges to International

Humanitarian Law. This dissertation analyses the provisions of International

Humanitarian Law which prohibit acts of terrorism and the legal issues raised by

responses to terrorist acts, i.e. by counter-terrorist operations or, as politicians

and the media have come to call it, "the war on terrorism". It has considered

the views of various scholars regarding the status of so-called "unlawful

combatants" and the controversy arising from their treatment after capture.

With the US on the one hand arguing that they torture of the unlawful

combatants is not prohibited under IHL because these unlawful combatants

are, as it were, outside the protections of the laws of war. The ICRC on the other

hand argues that there is no intermediate status. While all the debate goes on

allegations of torture in detention centres in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo

Bay are on the increase. The dissertation has, in line with these allegations,

examined the US legal issues concerning torture and other forms of mistreatment

of prisoners held by the united states in the "global war on terror" and from the

armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has also examined the initial response

of the executive branch of the US government to the allegations of torture,

efforts by the US Congress to address these concerns, and the role of the US

courts. Finally, it has considered whether IHL is adequate to deal with the phenomenon of terrorism.