Attachments
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The world stands on the brink of a profound crisis with respect to international humanitarian law. Violations — once seen as aberrations — are now persistent, widespread, and, perhaps most alarmingly, increasingly met with indifference or tacit acceptance by states. The very norms designed to protect civilians, the wounded, and those not participating in combat are eroding at an alarming rate, not only through the actions of those who violate them but through the inaction of those who should uphold them. This report documents the scale of these breaches and the growing complicity of inaction, underscoring the urgent need to reaffirm and reinforce the fundamental principles of humanity in armed conflict. A note on the methodology used can be found at the end of this report, along with a summary of relevant rules and principles of international humanitarian law in key thematic areas.
A World on Edge — Violence Spikes and Conflict Spirals
This annual report on IHL violations analyses 22 countries impacted by armed conflict. These situations by no means speak to the totality of war taking place in the world today. They do, however, highlight those conflicts exhibiting high volumes of military engagement, extensive civilian impact and serious IHL compliance concerns.
Within these country situations, the report identifies 57 non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) and 14 International Armed Conflicts (IACs). Compared to the same point the year prior, this represents a slight decrease in NIACs (from 61), a significant increase in IACs (from 8), and an overall net increase from 69 to 71 conflicts, continuing a 5-year directional trend in the Geneva Academy’s reporting on conflict classification. Readers should interpret this finding cautiously. Conflict classification is a contested science, with several competing methodologies and subjective decision-points, making trends difficult to quantify. Moreover, the existence of a conflict reveals little about its intensity, civilian impact or the belligerent parties’ respect for IHL rules. This said, the proposition that conflict is increasing globally is not an isolated viewpoint. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), for example, has also observed an alarming rise in armed conflicts worldwide. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program, using their definition of armed conflict, documented 59 active state-based armed conflicts in 2023, the highest number ever recorded. Likewise, the Armed Conflict Location and Event project calculated a 25 percent increase in political violence globally in 2024 compared to 2023, with one in eight people exposed to conflict being killed.
The findings suggest that changes may also be taking place within types of conflicts. NIACs remain the most numerous type of armed conflict, with several of these lasting for years (such as the ones in Syria and Yemen), if not for decades (such as the ones in Colombia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Yet IACs have regained attention in world affairs, begging questions around the stability of the decades-long trend away from state-on-state war. Indeed, compared to 2001 — often referenced as the high-point in IAC decline, where only one of the world’s armed conflicts was international and the average duration of war was 11 months — much has changed. This includes long-lasting situations of occupation (such as the ones affecting parts of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, as well as Ukraine (Crimea), to unconsented-to military operations by one State in the territory of another State (as in Iraq and Syria). In addition, recent international armed conflicts involving large-scale military operations (such as the one Russian Federation operations in Ukraine or the operations of Israel in Gaza) have been flanked by shorter episodes of armed force between States (such as the military confrontations between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, or the cross-border clashes between the de facto Afghan government and Pakistani armed forces). While it is far too early to speculate on whether this trajectory is a marker of something more ominous, it is telling that since the conclusion of collecting information for this report, the most significant developments concern IACs — e.g., the exchange of strikes between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel, the beginning of Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon, and reports that Eritrean armed forces are controlling parts of Ethiopian territory in the border areas.
An important reflection here is that compared to our knowledge on conflict typology and duration, far less is understood about whether violations of the rules of war, and the volume and nature of such violations, can shed light on the likely trajectory of a conflict, its potential for protraction, or whether acts might spill over into more serious forms of violence such as atrocity crimes. This is a critical area of inquiry that should be prioritised in future research. Another area where deeper insight is needed is how to arrest armed conflict escalation dynamics. Indeed, the current geopolitical situation has refocused attention on conflict prevention and early warning systems. Within this area of scholarship, it is clear that human rights play an important role, with violations especially around food insecurity, access to livelihoods, mal-governance, state-waged violence and natural resources exploitation, often observable for decades before reaching a tipping point. However, it remains unclear why localized violence spills over to reach the threshold of a NIAC or IAC in some circumstances, and not in others. This underscores the importance of balancing investment in early warning and prevention systems, with research into what early response actions — at the sub-national, national, regional and international levels — are impactful. This should include identifying what policies and practices used in the context of conflict are most ripe for certain types of IHL violations. For example, as the entries on Burkina Faso and Mali showcase, siege contexts can rapidly descend into situations of starvation, and thus should signal that coordination around humanitarian aid needs to be at the fore of programming. Likewise, conditions such as the presence of multiple, competing non-state armed groups seems to correlate with individualized violations such as abductions, hostage taking and rape, heightening the importance of safety measures for highly vulnerable groups.
A Growing Indifference to Human Suffering
A second observation relates to civilian suffering. Across every country entry, violence in one or more of the following forms is referenced: kidnapping, abduction, hostage-taking, forced displacement/eviction, arbitrary arrest/detention, enforced disappearance, violence to life, and forms of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment. Again, these findings are not the result of a legal investigatory process, which prevents any firm determination on exactly who was responsible and whether those acts were criminal. Yet the human consequences, are indisputable and harrowing.
Another concern relates to the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and landmines, whether this was meant to instill fear, restrict civilian movement and/or gain territorial control. In Burkina Faso, for example, the research indicated an upsurge in the use of IEDs, particularly victim-activated explosive devices and anti-personnel mines, causing numerous civilian casualties and hampering humanitarian access.
Other forms of violence impacted groups or entire communities. A particular issue was compliance with parties’ obligations regarding humanitarian access and the facilitation of humanitarian relief. While this is seen most vividly in the conflicts in Gaza and the Sudan, it is important not to overlook those situations where reporting is not as frequent or consistent, including due to weak security. Restrictions imposed by Azerbaijan, for example, prevented the delivery of food items, raising concerns about the use of starvation as a method of warfare. Violence was also reported against organizations and individual staff working to distribute humanitarian aid. In Afghanistan, where hundreds of access incidents were recorded, female aid workers were disproportionately targeted, creating knock on impacts for the delivery of assistance to women and girls. Attacks against medical facilities and practitioners also took place. In Ethiopia’s Amhara region, both state forces and non-state armed groups have been accused of attacking medical staff and transports, and looting hospitals of supplies. As in the case of humanitarian relief, such targeting drastically impacts the most vulnerable, including the elderly, those with chronic disease and disability, and children.
Finally, the impact on three specific groups needs to be highlighted.
Across all of the country entries, the recruitment of children and their use in combat was the most commonly referenced form of IHL violation, being listed as an issue in: Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. This form of violation needs to be understood as having immediate, compound and long-term impacts. As the Nigeria entry sets out, child recruitment not only creates a high risk of injury and death, but strongly associates with other forms of violence including abduction and sexual exploitation. Moreover, children’s participation in armed conflict, separation from family, and interruption in education, create deeply entrenched socio-behavioural deficits that correlate with negative outcomes, including cyclical violence and criminality.
An additional standout violation of IHL concerns the perpetration of sexual violence, mainly against women. While a vast majority of such cases go unreported, the phenomenon was documented in: Central African Republic, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Russia-Ukraine, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Like child recruitment, sexual violence is a complex form of attack with multifaceted consequences. For example, the entry on Central African Republic describes sexual violence being used as a tool to gain control over territory, natural resources and trade. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations stabilization mission documented 733 instances of conflict-related sexual violence, including gang rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage. It follows that survivors are not only at risk of severe physical and psychological impacts, but also family/community stigmatization/rejection — phenomena that easily become intergenerational, especially when children are born from sexual violence.
A final observation relates to the targeting of specific identity groups, such as ethnic and religious minorities. In Afghanistan, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL-K) was linked to attacks on specific schools and houses of worship, while in Ethiopia and Sudan attacks were directed at civilians that appeared to be ethnically motivated. While this typology of violence was not frequent, it is highly significant, especially given the linkages between othering, in-group/out-group dynamics, and atrocity crimes. Although these dynamics do not inevitably lead to mass violence, they can create an environment in which targeting particular groups becomes more conceivable or socially justified.
Non-state armed groups at the centre of changing conflict dynamics
Across the 57 NIACs taking place in 22 countries, this report identified 61 non-state armed group (NSAG) parties to conflict. It is important to underscore that this denotes only a slim minority of the NSAGs operating globally. According to the ICRC, as at July 2024, 455 armed groups of concern were operational, with around 210 million individuals living under their control. However it is not only the number of NSAGs that is disquieting, but the nature of the violence that spills over onto civilian populations. The entry on Central African Republic, for example, depicts NSAGs as responsible for the majority of documented cases of sexual violence related to the conflict. The Mali entry examines how over 100,000 people were besieged by NSAGs for several months, resulting in severe food shortages and hunger. In Yemen, Houthi forces’ use of anti-personnel land mines, including around schools, mosques, houses and water sources, has been signalled as causing the majority of the mine-related civilian causalities in the reporting period.
This is not to suggest that NSAGs are always more violent than the armed forces of the state. For the populations living under non-state control, these groups can sometimes be regarded as more protective, less predatory and of greater utility than state actors. Indeed, of the 455 NSAGs listed by the ICRC, 80 percent provide services including healthcare, education, social support and policing. However, the participation of a NSAG in an IAC or NIAC does raise specific challenges that can impact the scale and nature of IHL violations. A first issue is practical; where they are small and less organized, NSAGs may be less aware of their IHL obligations, or lack the capacity or resources to engage in IHL compliant actions, such as proportionality assessments in targeting or ensuring no children join their group. Existing outside the mainstream community of states, a NSAG may not feel beholden to or recognize the authority of norms set by the international community. Certainly, conflict tactics such as the abduction of children, sexual violence against girls and use of female suicide bombers, were disproportionately associated with specific non-state armed groups. Boko Haram is a case in point, by abducting some 616 children, many of whom were then used in armed combat and/or exposed to sexual violence.
The prevalence of NSAGs as parties to conflict raises important questions around the often complex relationships that intertwine State and non-state groups. References in the entries to private military companies (PMCs), while not voluminous, warrant special mention. Many governments, constrained by limited resources or political will, turn to PMCs to fill public security gaps, despite controversies over their conduct. Domestically, outsourcing military operations allows states to reduce political costs — minimizing official casualty counts, bypassing parliamentary oversight, and shifting the human burden of warfare onto ‘disposable’ and often foreign personnel. Internationally, PMCs provide states with the flexibility to sustain a military presence in politically sensitive regions where the deployment of regular forces may prove logistically impractical, diplomatically contentious, or even a violation of international law. This evolution in conflict dynamics, and the legal consequences of such, require urgent reflection and policy engagement.
Finally, it is impossible to discuss NSAG without highlighting the number of entities that were both parties to conflict and subject to sanctions imposed by the Security Council. These include al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM in Burkina Faso; the Allied Democratic Forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Boko Haram in Nigeria; the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines; Jama’al Nusrat al Islam wa al-Muslimeen (JNIM) in Mali; al Shabab in Somalia; Hay’at Tahir Al-Sham (HTS) in Syria; and al Queda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Houthis in Yemen — groups long-involved in violent extremism, jihadism, and/or terrorist activities. The Islamic State or groups affiliated to it were conflict actors in: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Syria and Turkey. Like PMCs, these groups are a distinct form of NSAG. They generally have ideological (rather than political) aims that are strongly rooted in group identity, and their strategy is one of disrupting state order, as opposed to a consolidation of its power. Most important for the purposes of this discussion is the brutality these groups exact for the purposes of punishment, coercion, goal alignment, and commanding uniformity. The entries included in this report confirm that such tactics continue to be used. In Nigeria, Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) engaged in hostage-taking — principally targeting women and children. In Afghanistan, ISIL-K, targeted ethnic and religious minorities such as Shi’a and Hazara communities, including by attacking buildings dedicated to education and religion, and using explosive weapons in civilian-dense urban environments. In Mali, the Islamic State in the Sahel besieged the town of Ménaka, cutting off 140,000 from basic necessities, 80,000 which were children. In Mozambique, attacks on civilians intensified (from 38 to over 70 percent) following a “seek out and kill” instruction issued by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).