¹ See, for instance, the project carried out by the ICRC and Switzerland on how to enhance compliance in armed conflicts, available at www.icrc.org/en/document/strengthening-compliance-international-humanitarian-law-ihl-work-icrc-and-swiss-government (accessed 16 March 2018). For other studies on the topic, see the Generating Respect for the Law issue of the International Review of the Red Cross published in December 2015, (2014) 95/96 International Review of the Red Cross 684; and ICRC, ‘Improving Respect for International Humanitarian Law in Non-International Armed Conflicts’, 2008, available at www.icrc.org/sites/default/files/topic/file_plus_list/0923-increasing_respect_for_international_humanitarian_law_in_non-international_armed_conflicts.pdf (accessed 16 March 2018).

² Heffes, E. and Kotlik, M., ‘Special agreements as a means of enhancing compliance with IHL in non-international armed conflicts: An inquiry into the governing legal regime’, (2014) 96 International Review of the Red Cross 1201CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also ICRC, Improving Respect for International Humanitarian Law in Non-International Armed Conflicts, supra note 1, at 11–12.

³ See, for instance, H. Jo, Compliant Rebels. Rebel Groups and International Law in World Politics (2015); Sassòli, M., ‘Taking Armed Groups Seriously: Ways to Improve their Compliance with International Humanitarian Law’, (2010) 1 Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bangerter, O., ‘Reasons why Armed Groups Choose to Respect International Humanitarian Law or Not’, (2011) 93 International Review of the Red Cross 353CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The ICRC is also currently undertaking certain initiatives with the goal of reaffirming the relevance of IHL in armed conflicts. In this sense, J. Garcia Ravel and V. Bernard, ‘Changing the narrative on international humanitarian law’, 4 November 2017, ICRC Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog, available at blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2017/11/24/changing-the-narrative-on-international-humanitarian-law/ (accessed 16 March 2018).

⁴ Krieger, H., ‘Introduction’, in Krieger, H. (ed.), Inducing Compliance with International Humanitarian Law. Lessons from the African Great Lakes Region (2015), 1 at 4Google Scholar.

⁵ Ibid., at 1.

⁶ Ibid., at 2. Asymmetry between NSAGs and states can take a variety of forms, such as balance of power, level of commitment, scale of organization and degree of legitimacy. Hazen, J., What Rebel Want. Resources and Supply Networks in Wartime (2013), 29–33Google Scholar.

⁷ M. Shaw, International Law (2008), 6. Various explanations have been used to justify this assertion. One of these argues that because states participate in the international-law making processes, they have little incentive to break the rules they create. Another reason focuses on the role of legitimacy. When a norm is perceived as useful and legitimate, states would want to adhere to it, as it would be the right thing to do. Finally, Klabbers has suggested, contrary to the conventional thinking, that international law is not completely devoid of sanctions. Despite not having an international police force or international prison, the social sanction of becoming a ‘pariah’ state could be quite strong. J. Klabbers, International Law (2013), 10–11. See also J.D. Ohlin, The Assault on International Law (2015), 23.

⁸ The ICRC has defined decentralized groups as those ‘with semi-autonomous or splinter factions, operating under an ill-defined leadership structure’. ICRC, Improving Respect for International Humanitarian Law in Non-International Armed Conflicts, supra note 1, at 11.

⁹ Thürer has explained that respect for IHL depends on the existence of both ‘a military chain of command and a compulsion to comply with international law obligations as required by orders and discipline. This does not apply in the case of an anarchic conflict involving loosely organized clans and other “units”, which may be parts of a “private army” or perhaps just bands of plundering, pillaging killers, none of them bound by any professional code of discipline or honour. Where group structures have completely broken down and the fighting atomized, every combatant is his own commander and the traditional mechanisms for the implementation of international humanitarian law are wholly ineffective’. See D. Thürer, ‘The “failed State” and international law’, 31 December 1999, 836 International Review of the Red Cross, available at www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/article/other/57jq6u.htm (accessed 18 March 2018). See also Jo, supra note 3, at 60, focusing exclusively on NSAGs.

¹⁰ R. Wood, ‘Understanding strategic motives for violence against civilians during civil conflict’, in Krieger, supra note 4, at 15.

¹¹ S. Sivakumaran, ‘Implementing humanitarian norms through non-State armed groups’, in Krieger, supra note 4, at 146.

¹² It does not remain sufficiently clear, however, why other states also located in the African Great Lakes Region are not also analyzed.

¹³ J. Willms, ‘Courts of armed groups – a tool for inducing higher compliance with international humanitarian law’, in Krieger, supra note 4, at 150.

¹⁴ Ibid., at 179.

¹⁵ D. Fleck, ‘Comment – perspectives on courts established by armed opposition groups’, in Krieger, supra note 4, at 182.

¹⁶ Prosecutor v. Bemba Gombo, Decision Pursuant to Article 61(7)(a) and (b) of the Rome Statute on the Charges of the Prosecutor Against Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, ICC-01/05-01/08-424, Pre-Trial Chamber II, 15 June 2009, para. 501.

¹⁷ ‘Swedish court hands life sentence to Syrian for war crimes’, The Local, 16 February 2017, available at www.thelocal.se/20170216/swedish-court-hands-life-sentence-to-syrian-for-war-crimes (accessed 18 March 2018). See also J. Somer, ‘Opening the Floodgates, Controlling the Flow: Swedish Court Rules on the Legal Capacity of Armed Groups to Establish Courts’, EJIL: Talk!, 10 March 2017, available at www.ejiltalk.org/opening-the-floodgates-controlling-the-flow-swedish-court-rules-on-the-legal-capacity-of-armed-groups-to-establish-courts/ (accessed 18 March 2018).

¹⁸ D. Steiger, ‘Enforcing international humanitarian law through human rights bodies’, in Krieger, supra note 4, at 297–8.

¹⁹ UN Doc. S/Res/1261 (1999) ‘Children and Armed Conflict’ (30 August 1999).

²⁰ UN Doc. S/Res/1379 (2001) ‘Children and Armed Conflict’ (20 November 2001).

²¹ S. Sivakumaran, The Law of Non–International Armed Conflicts (2012), 533–4.

²² The six grave violations are killing and maiming of children; recruitment or use of children as soldiers; sexual violence against children; abduction of children; attacks against schools or hospitals; and denial of humanitarian access for children. Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, ‘The Six Grave Violations’, available at childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/effects-of-conflict/six-grave-violations/ (accessed 16 March 2018).

²³ Clapham, A., ‘The Accountability of Armed Groups’, in Clapham, A. and Gaeta, P. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Armed Conflict (2014), 801CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ R. Klostermann, ‘The UN Security Council's special compliance system – the regime of children and armed conflict’, in Krieger, supra note 4, at 333. For other reasons why armed groups choose to respect UNSC Resolutions, see Jo, supra note 3, at 167–81, focusing specifically on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. See also Heffes, E., Kotlik, M. and Frenkel, B., ‘Addressing Armed Opposition Groups Through Security Council Resolutions: A New Paradigm?’, in Lachenmann, F. et al. (eds.), (2015) 18 Max Planck Yearbook of the United Nations 52–67Google Scholar.

²⁵ Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, ‘Action Plans with Armed Forces and Armed Groups’, available at childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/our-work/action-plans/ (accessed 18 March 2018).

²⁶ R. Geiß, ‘Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions: scope and content of the obligation to “ensure respect” – “narrow but deep” or “wide and shallow”’, in Krieger, supra note 4, at 428.

²⁷ ICRC, Commentary on Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, 2016, available at ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Comment.xsp?action=openDocument&documentId=72239588AFA66200C1257F7D00367DBD, para. 125 (accessed 16 March 2018).

²⁸ K. Schamalenbach, ‘International responsibility for humanitarian law violations by armed groups’, in Krieger, supra note 4, at 496–7.

²⁹ Ibid., at 498.

³⁰ Ibid., at 501.

³¹ H. Krieger, ‘Conclusion: where States fail, non-State actors rise. Inducing compliance with international humanitarian law in areas of limited statehood’, in Krieger, supra note 4, at 550.