The first section of the chapter draws together the findings from Chapters 3 – 5, revisiting Chapter 1’s ‘straw-person’ Figure 1 in light of the case studies to produce a more fine-grained portrait of how hypothesised and other factors contributed to shaping the civil war regime. This is followed by a reconsideration of how these factors combined in different instances to produce drafting outputs.

This chapter provides context for the study as a whole, situating the development of the civil war regime within the evolution of the international law of armed conflict. The chapter considers the classical, mediaeval and enlightenment manifestations of the legal distinction between international and internal armed conflict. It then discusses the rise and fall of the doctrines of belligerency and insurgency, the Lieber Code, and the establishment and early activities of the ICRC, before surveying the development of the law of armed conflict from the late 19th century until the Second World War. The chapter then considers the development of the civil war regime between 1949 and 1998 and subsequently, highlighting the key elements of the regime and setting these in the broader international legal context, including the development of international human rights law and international criminal law.

Negotiating Civil War has sought to provide a rounded, nuanced, portrait of the emergence of the Civil War Regime, leveraging the explanatory capacity of carefully selected theoretical propositions derived from mainstream IR research traditions. The following discussion assesses the extent to which this endeavour has been successful, and identifies wider lessons that can be derived. The first section sets out the key findings from the case studies and the examination overall. The second section sets Negotiating Civil War in the context of related bodies of research and considers scholarly and practical implications. The final section draws the volume to a close.