INTERNMENT IN INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND NON-STATE ARMED GROUPS

Being different from criminal detention, internment (administrative detention) in a non-punitive quality is based on security grounds and is an exceptional measure ordered by the executive power. The purpose of internment is to prevent individuals considered to be security threats from engaging in hostile acts, not to punish them for their past conducts. Capturing and holding members of the adversary is an inherent feature of armed conflict. Whether carried out by state or non-state parties the deprivation of liberty of the adversaries is an ordinary occurrence in situations of armed conflict. In international armed conflicts, captured combatants may be deprived of liberty as ‘prisoner of war.’ However, in non-international armed conflicts where there is no such a status, it is a controversial issue on what grounds and procedures captured adversaries can be detained. The present article discusses whether there is a legal basis of detention by non-state armed groups as significant actors of the contemporary armed conflicts. The article consists of two main parts. The term of internment is identified in the first and examined in the context of the non-international armed conflict. The second part deals with the legal basis of the internment carried out by non-state armed groups