The Colombian Peace Agreement of 24 November 2016 and International Law: Some Preliminary Remarks

The role the 2016 Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC attributes to international law is central. International law permeates all the six distinct sectorial agreements, even those, such as the one on rural reform or illicit drugs, where the link with this corpus iuris may appear tenuous. This paper addresses three questions concerning the way in which international law is used in the Agreement. Firstly, the meaning of the qualification of the Agreement as a special agreement in the terms of article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; secondly, the role of third states in the elaboration and implementation of the Agreement; and, lastly, the meaning and scope of the referral that the Agreement makes to three branches of international law, i.e. International Human Rights Law (IHRL), International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Criminal Law (ICL).