HUMAN RIGHTS IN ARMED CONFLICTS: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW

There is no armed conflict (or even political conflict, in the strict sense of the term) in which the issue of human rights violations does not arise. Moreover, it is absurd to believe that there can be an open conflict that does not affect the rights of the civilian population. As in any debate that is simultaneously sociological, political, legal and international relations, terminology is a key variable. If we talk about war crimes, we theoretically and legally more correctly frame this collective crime in the context of a type of interaction between two states.

A concept such as crimes against humanity also covers the situation in which we criminalize, for example, the crime of a political regime against its own population, against a minority, not just a war between two states or a civil war between well-determined parties.