CYIL vol. 11 (2020)

MILAN LIPOVSKÝ CYIL 11 (2020) others evidenced by the fact that the ICTY considered the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina to be international till 19 May 1992 and asked itself whether it remained so after that date or became an internal conflict. 8 2.1 International armed conflict The main sources of humanitarian law are (besides customary law) the Geneva Conventions. 9 Their common Article 2 declares that the conventions apply to an “ armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties. ” The Tadić definition used the same criteria but both definitions unfortunately lack some clarity. There are numerous other definitions of the IAC trying to explain some questions. For example, Yoram Dinstein proposed the following definition of war (an IAC): War is a hostile interaction between two or more States, either in a technical or in a material sense. War in the technical sense is a formal status produced by a declaration of war. War in the material sense is generated by actual use of armed force, which must be comprehensive on the part of at least one party to the conflict. 10 However, this definition does not reflect the fact that not every use of armed force by a state against another state reaches the level of an armed conflict either. It remains to be noted that there are still other kinds of international armed conflicts than the inter-state ones described above. The additional protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (API) added “ armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist régimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination” into the IAC scope. Due to the rejection of the protocol by several states, this scope of application is not universally accepted. Unlike in the case of non-international armed conflict described below, the IAC definition does not formally require any kind of intensity, organization of the armed forces, or time frame. This fact, if applied in an absurd way, could mean an automatic existence of an IAC even in minor incidents. The mistaken exercise of authority by two Polish soldiers within the Czech Republic in May 2020 would be a good example of an absurdly strict application of the definition. 11 There is however one more fact barring the situation to be classified as an armed conflict because without an armed response from the Czech side, one may contend that there was no armed conflict despite the definition being formally fulfilled, because “ the Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, 75 UNTS 31, Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea, 75 UNTS 85, Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 75 UNTS 135, and Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, 75 UNTS 287 all adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 1125 UNTS 3, and Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), 1125 UNTS 609 both adopted 8 June 1977, entered into force 7 December 1978 Protocol additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Adoption of an Additional Distinctive Emblem (Protocol III), 2404 UNTS 261, adopted 8 December 2005, entered into force 14 January 2007. 10 DINSTEIN, Y. War, Aggression and Self-Defence . 3rd ed., Cambridge: CUP, 2001. ISBN: 0-521-79758-6, p. 15. 11 Described in KLECZKOWSKA, A., FAIX, M., A bridge too far: Polish-Czech border incident, available at URL https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/a-bridge-too-far-polish-czech-border-incident/. 8 ICTY, Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadić , IT-94-1-A, ACh, judgment of 15 July 1999, para. 87. 9

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