... by asymmetric warfare to IHL and the role of nonstate groups in many of the world's conflicts, as well as the involvement of irregular actors—paramilitaries, child soldiers, civilians, and private military firms. The book considers how legal instruments historically designed to humanize the anarchy...

... as young as 16 years old detained at Guantanamo Bay, the chapter highlights the problematic breaching of the two main protected-status positions—combatants and civilians—when children become involved in armed conflicts. It also considers how contemporary humanitarian law deals with child terrorists, along...

..., civilians participating in hostilities, and private military firms) and their challenge to international humanitarian law. The text explains that gaps in the laws of war leave modern battlefields largely unregulated, and the fear is that state parties suffer without guidelines for responding to terrorists...

... specifically, it considers the existing rules and paradigms of international law and proposes a new framework for the treatment of nonstate actors in armed conflicts. To this end, the chapter looks at two elemental humanitarian law precepts—the distinction between combatants and civilians and the link between...

... each generation's new challenges but argues that continuity in its principles should remain. It further contends that the balance of intrinsic to humanitarian law—between state equality and the protection of civilians—may be adapted to nonstate actors in today's armed conflicts through a broad...

... into the military pressure experienced by the P.L.O., the war's impact on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, and diplomatic efforts by the United States. A new preface considers developments across the Middle East in the thirty years since the conflict. The preface also cites recently declassified Israeli...

... that no new status designation category is required, and instead calls for a broader interpretation of existing language in the 1977 Protocol Additional I to the Geneva Conventions to account for fighters who purposely attack from within civilian populations or use civilian status to frustrate targeting...

..., this narrative includes the experiential accounts of civilians, politicians, former dissidents, insurgents, and militiamen. Iraqis offering firsthand stories range from onetime Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to resistance fighters speaking on the condition of anonymity. Divided into five parts, these interviews...