Rebel Groups and International Law

反叛团体与国际法

• 批准号: 1260218
• 负责人: Hyeran Jo
• 金额: $ 7.5万
• 依托单位: Texas A&M University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-02-01 至 2017-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1260218&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Rebel; Groups; International; Law

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army in Sudan has stopped using child soldiers while the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda continued the practice. Why do some rebel groups in civil wars follow the laws of war while others do not? This question is puzzling because rebel groups are not usually creators of international law. Also, in many cases, their rights and obligations under international law are not clear. Given this legal and political environment and with often-dominating military-strategic imperatives, under what conditions would rebel groups follow the laws of war?To solve the puzzle, this project proposes to study why rebel groups in civil conflicts abide by international law. Grounded on the theories of compliance and political legitimacy, the researcher hypothesizes that rebel groups abide by laws of war when they have political aims to be recognized as a viable political entity. To test the hypothesis, the researcher will statistically analyze the behaviors of armed opposition groups in civil wars between 1991 and 2010 to examine three compliance behaviors of rebel groups: (1) the use of child soldiers, (2) the killing of civilians, and (3) the treatment of detainees.The project is important for two reasons. From a scholarly point of view, the project solves a theoretical puzzle as to why rebel groups would follow international rules that they did not initially create. The question has not been fully answered in the existing literature because scholars of international relations have thus far focused on the behavior of nation-states. From a practical point of view, the project has broad impacts for human security. As some seventeen million people have died in civil conflicts over the past half-century, the answer to the proposed research question will advance our understanding about when and how to engage rebel groups and encourage them to comply with international law.

在苏丹的苏丹人民解放运动/解放军已停止使用儿童兵，而在乌干达的上帝抵抗军则继续使用儿童兵。为什么内战中的一些反叛团体遵守战争法，而另一些则不遵守？这个问题令人困惑，因为叛乱集团通常不是国际法的创造者。此外，在许多情况下，国际法规定的他们的权利和义务并不明确。在这种法律的和政治环境下，在军事战略需要往往占主导地位的情况下，反叛团体在什么条件下会遵守战争法？为了解决这一难题，本项目建议研究为什么国内冲突中的反叛组织遵守国际法。基于遵守和政治合法性的理论，研究人员假设，叛乱团体遵守战争法时，他们的政治目标是被承认为一个可行的政治实体。为了验证这一假设，研究人员将对1991年至2010年期间武装反对派团体在内战中的行为进行统计分析，以检查反叛团体的三种遵守行为：（1）使用儿童兵，（2）杀害平民，（3）对待被拘留者。该项目的重要性有两个原因。从学术的角度来看，该项目解决了一个理论难题，即为什么反叛组织会遵守他们最初没有制定的国际规则。这个问题在现有的文献中没有得到充分的回答，因为国际关系学者迄今为止一直专注于民族国家的行为。从实际角度来看，该项目对人的安全具有广泛影响。在过去的半个世纪里，大约有1700万人死于国内冲突，对所提出的研究问题的回答将促进我们对何时以及如何与反叛团体接触的理解，并鼓励他们遵守国际法。