ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 begins with the official story of humanitarian protection, explaining how it is based on a set of international laws and humanitarian principles that guide the behaviour of various actors in war, including states, their militaries and humanitarian agencies. This state-based, legal approach to protection – centred on international humanitarian law (IHL), international refugee law (IRL) and international human rights law (IHRL) – has remained relatively consistent over the years, slowly extending to accommodate intra-state conflicts and non-state armed actors. However, as the chapter goes on to explain, tensions exist between these state-based laws and the complex context of civil wars and insurgencies. These tensions have escalated in recent decades as various non-state armed actors have increasingly asserted their authority, drawing on cultural and religious traditions that are often at odds with Western legal frameworks. The chapter goes on to explore the response to these tensions, first outlining official efforts to expand the frameworks in order to accommodate these new actors, before proposing an alternative view of how these frameworks operate in the real world of contemporary wars.
