Killing in a Gray Area between Humanitarian Law and Human Rights

Armed forces can be confronted with the problem of correctly classifying a targeted group as one that is or is not party to an armed conflict. In particular, this happens in a context of a high level of violence where a non-international armed conflict is (likely) occurring at the same time, such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Brazil or Mexico. The difficulty of qualifying the targeted group leads to a legal uncertainty in which it is unclear whether an operation is governed by international humanitar