Browsing by Author "Otiende, Abraham"

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    Status of Unlawful Combatants and Their Protection under International Humanitarian Law
    (Kampala International University, bachelors degree of laws, 2009-12) Otiende, Abraham
    The phenomenon of terrorism has brought so many challenges to International Humanitarian Law. This dissertation analyses the provisions of International Humanitarian Law which prohibit acts of terrorism and the legal issues raised by responses to terrorist acts, i.e. by counter-terrorist operations or, as politicians and the media have come to call it, "the war on terrorism". It has considered the views of various scholars regarding the status of so-called "unlawful combatants" and the controversy arising from their treatment after capture. With the US on the one hand arguing that they torture of the unlawful combatants is not prohibited under IHL because these unlawful combatants are, as it were, outside the protections of the laws of war. The ICRC on the other hand argues that there is no intermediate status. While all the debate goes on allegations of torture in detention centres in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay are on the increase. The dissertation has, in line with these allegations, examined the US legal issues concerning torture and other forms of mistreatment of prisoners held by the united states in the "global war on terror" and from the armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has also examined the initial response of the executive branch of the US government to the allegations of torture, efforts by the US Congress to address these concerns, and the role of the US courts. Finally, it has considered whether IHL is adequate to deal with the phenomenon of terrorism.