Reapprasing the Approach of International Law to Civil Wars: Aid to Legitimate Governments or Insurgents and Conflict Minimization

Since the Second World War, there has been a constant decrease of inter-state conflicts. In sharp contrast, the level of intra-state violence has not declined and has even reached unprecedented peaks. This points to a striking discrepancy between the rejection of violence at the inter-state level and the wide leeway that is still afforded to the use of violence at the intra-state level and to external interferences fueling it. This article takes stock of the main features (and serious flaws) of the existing legal framework on aid to governments or insurgents in internal conflict situations. On the basis of a combined legal and conflict-management analysis, the author proposes a radically different approach and formulates a number of legal and policy recommendations on how to tackle the complex phenomenon of foreign intervention in civil wars, where enormous human, economic, and social implications are at stake.