Collaborative rebel-civil society driven governance as resistance to state criminality: The Kachin Independence Army's revolutionary law abidance.

克钦独立组织/克钦独立军(克钦独立组织/克钦独立军)成立于1961年，是为了回应缅甸威权领导人强加的歧视性政策，后者认为少数民族权利是对其巴玛佛教民族主义意识形态的威胁。冲突持续不断，使其成为现代历史上持续时间最长的内战之一。除了武装暴力，克钦独立组织/阿盟领导人的一个派别认为，发展平行的国家结构是克钦抵抗的一个重要组成部分。在这一新的“叛军治理”进程中，包括试图遵守国际人道主义法(IHL)的内容。最明显的是，禁止征募未满18岁的人入伍。这一立场有违常理，因为国际规范属于一个以国家为中心的监管体系，旨在维护国家主权，这在很大程度上使暴力反抗政府权威的行为者失去合法性。该项目旨在增强我们对支持叛军决定参与国际规范的动机的理解，尽管战争法属于更广泛的国际监管体系，其基础是阻碍对主权国家的武装反对(Mégret 2009，Anghie 2003，Orford 2006)。研究的价值在于，它谦虚地寻求解决我们将武装反对派团体概念化为潜在合法行为者的有限能力。这一方法旨在加强我们对“叛军”参与国际法的动机和影响的理解，以及抵制政府滥用职权的战略，国际法往往无法有效地解决这些问题。该项目基于七个多月的实地考察，包括对克钦叛军、社区和政治领导人以及因冲突而流离失所的个人、国际援助人员和外交官、当地和国际政治分析人士、记者和民间社会行为者进行的160多次访谈和非正式讨论。我的研究显示，2011年后缅甸政府暴力加剧引发并加强了民间社会的合作--抵抗叛军和建设克钦国家的雄心。叛军统治的现象，特别是愿意参与国际人道主义法(IHL)的现象，尽管在有限的意义上，引发了一些我的研究试图解决的紧迫问题：矛盾的是，IHL的其他叛军如何会剥夺这些组织遵守国际人道主义规范的机会？平民-叛军合作抵抗是如何出现和发展的，以应对国家犯罪并影响国际人道主义法的参与？

The Kachin Independence Organisation/Army (KIO/A) emerged in 1961 in response to discriminatory policies imposed by Myanmar's authoritarian leaders who perceive minority rights as a threat to its Bamar-Buddhist nationalist ideology. The conflict persists making it one of the longest running civil wars in modern history. Alongside armed violence, a faction of KIO/A leaders perceive the development of parallel state structures as an important component of Kachin resistance. Included within this nascent process of 'rebel governance' are attempts to comply with elements of international humanitarian law (IHL). Most clearly, the prohibition against the military recruitment of persons under the age of 18. This position is counter-intuitive because international norms belong to a system of state-centric regulation constructed to maintain state sovereignty, which for the most part, delegitimises actors violently resisting governmental authority. The project aims then to enhance our understanding of the motivations underpinning rebel decisions to engage with international norms, though the laws of war belong to a broader system of international regulation which, at its foundations, obstructs armed opposition to sovereign power (Mégret 2009, Anghie 2003, Orford 2006).The research is valuable in the sense that it humbly seeks to address our limited ability to conceptualise armed opposition groups as potentially legitimate actors. This approach is designed to enhance our understanding of the motivations and implications of 'rebel' engagement with international law, upon strategies of resistance to abuses perpetrated by governments, which international law frequently fails to address efficiently.The project is based upon over seven months of fieldwork observations, including more than 160 interviews and informal discussions with Kachin rebel, community, and political leaders as well as individuals displaced by the conflict, international aid workers and diplomats, and local and international political analysts, journalists, and civil society actors. My research reveals that intensified Myanmar state violence post-2011 has triggered and strengthened collaborative civil society-rebel resistance and Kachin nation building ambitions.The phenomenon of rebel governance, specifically a willingness to engage, albeit in a limited sense, with IHL elicits a number of urgent questions that my research seeks to address: How might IHL's 'othering' of rebels, paradoxically, deprive such groups of the opportunity to comply with international humanitarian norms? How does collaborative civilian-rebel resistance emerge and evolve in response to state criminality and influence IHL engagement?