Abstract:

In the last few decades, most of the armed conflicts have occurred as internal armed conflicts. Although having been considered as a domestic issue of a state for several years, in response to several developments in the field of humanitarian law, these kinds of armed conflicts are now considered as a threat to international peace and security. Depending on the various circumstances, an internal armed conflict may transform into an international armed conflict. Internationalization of an internal armed conflict is important for the determination of the rules to be applied to the conflict. While the protection of the parties is quite limited in an internal armed conflict, during the internationalized armed conflicts international humanitarian law is applicable as a whole. The reasons leading the internationalization of internal armed conflicts and problems related to this concept are assessed in this paper

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