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PHAP publishes answers by member and guest experts to questions submitted by members of the association. All opinions expressed are the authors' own.

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Q&A: Does intent play into the qualification of a conflict?
Noëlle Quenivet
12 July 2015
Common Article 2 to the Geneva Conventions defines an international armed conflict as an ‘armed conflict … between two or more of the High Contracting Parties’. It does not provide any threshold of applicability and the ICRC Commentary suggests that the Conventions apply even...
Q&A: The use of the term "terrorist groups"
PHAP Member's picture
PHAP Member
27 February 2015
There are a number of problems surrounding the use of the word "terrorist" or "terrorist group." First, "terrorist group" is not a neutral term; it denotes a judgement that a group is criminal in its activities and/ or objectives. It is generally preferable as a...
Q&A: The provision of relief to families in terroritories controlled by terrorist-listed groups
Panos Merkouris
26 February 2015
This will depend on the legislation both of the country in which activities will be held, as well as the country in which the relevant humanitarian organization is registered. For an analysis of the relevant issues with such laws, as well as their compatibility with IHL and the best course of...
Q&A: Do counter-terrorism laws impair the "right of humanitarian initiative"?
Panos Merkouris
24 February 2015
Two things have to be clarified from the outset. Firstly, in order for IHL to be relevant the situation at hand must be one of an international (IAC) or non-international armed conflict (NIAC). Let us proceed under the assumption that this condition is satisfied. The second clarification is that...
Q&A: Can raided relief convoys in Syria be considered as support to terrorist-listed groups?
PHAP Member's picture
PHAP Member
23 February 2015
Assuming the relief organization does not know about the raids in advance (or does not have a reasonable basis to believe they will happen), there is little legal ground to argue that theft of relief supplies by a listed party is tantamount to the provision of material support to them by an...