What Are ‘Armed Non-State Actors’? A Legal and Semantic Approach

Abstract

The terms ‘armed non-state actors’ (ANSAs), ‘organized armed groups’, ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorist groups’ are not defined in international treaties or international customary law. However, there are legal and political consequences attached to these terms. As an effort to better understand the concept of an ANSA itself and its regulation under international law, this article proposes to further reflect on what are ANSAs, by proposing a critical analysis of each of its constitutive terms: ‘armed’ v. ‘non-armed’, ‘state’ v. ‘non-state’, and ‘actors’ v. ‘individual’.

Keywords: armed non-state actors, international humanitarian law, human rights law, public international law, armed groups