ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 carries out a survey of the material conditions of contemporary conflicts in order to identify key trends that are pertinent to normative analysis and reconceptualisation. It examines the dynamics of the largely asymmetric power relations of contemporary conflicts which have led to conflicts becoming increasingly unconventional and irregular in nature and urban in context. The unconventional tactics employed mean that conflicts and confrontations tend to be continuous in duration and mixed or hybrid in character.2 This means that within a single operational theatre, there may be different types of armed confrontation reaching the threshold of an armed conflict of an international and/or non-international character. Further complicating this is violence that may be associated with terrorism, uprisings, organised crime, public disorder or petty crime that does not reach the threshold of an armed conflict or which is connected with surrounding hostilities.
