Categorizing the Armed Conflicts in the context of International Humanitarian Law

Abstract

Historically Colombian society has always been affected by the armed conflict being experienced in the country. Tere is a considerable need to seek ways for getting answers to what has been called a civil war by some and by others as terrorism, and in other cases an internal armed conflict; in that sense it is easy to observe that at the institutional and social level, the armed conflict is defined without any academic rigor, thus limiting the establishment of valid categories and consequently the absence of an appropriate mechanism or instrument that provides adequate treatment of the problem of the armed conflict in Colombia. Te recourse to international humanitarian law has beneficial effects such as the protection of civilians, holding perpetrators accountable, humanizing hostilities and its point of consciousness to present a common language that accordingly allows a solution without arms to the problem that fuels the armed conflict in Colombia. Added to this, some violentologists have taken part in the analysis conceptualizing the armed conflict facing Colombia as a behavioral issue that is clearly based on defining the Colombian man as violent by nature, a fact which from our observation one should be weary of and to resist, as whenever Colombia has experienced wars, it could be due to various causes differing from that of classifying the nature of man in Colombia, such as that of the decolonization, independence, state-building, the establishing of binding rules, the monopoly of force and the ordering of society of itself. In accordance with the above, an ongoing Doctorate in Sociology of Law and Political Institutions at the External University of Colombia was established in order to solve the question that was posed of how to define the Colombian armed conflict in a meaningful way using a recognized category, to somehow limit the qualifications that were provided by governments and society itself according to their interests in that some cases coincide with those of the State but that in others, subject civilians to extensive damages arising from armed actions, without there being an exit that greatly exceeds the military option.