Shadowland Strategy: How Non-State Armed Actors Fight for their Rights

• In Event: Individuals and Institutions Under International Law

Abstract

Shadowland refers to the legal space where non-state armed actors are sometimes recognized as legitimate actors with responsibilities but other times, as illegitimate actors without rights. What do non-state armed actors, such as rebel group leaders, or individuals leading the insurgent movements, do in that gray and indeterminate legal space? I argue that non-state armed actors forge a variety of political and legal strategies to fight for their rights in the traditionally state-actor-dominant legal space. The variety of strategies include 1) active legal contestation, 2) participation in law-making, and 3) silence. The representatives from Polisario in the Western Sahara argued its self-determination case at the European Court of Justice; the leaders of the MeK from Iran and the LTTE from Sri Lanka disputed their terrorist designations at the U.S. District of Columbia Appeals Courts. More than 100 armed group leadership members participate by making quasi-legal hybrid treaty documents with international organizations or via peace treaties. The rest of non-state armed actors are either silent with respect to these rights, or choose to fight national laws to secure their rights, such as Taliban in Afghanistan, creating their own laws and regulations in their controlled territory. The choice of these various legal and political strategies crucially depends on the aims and legal capacity of those groups, but also their relationships with their national governments. When the government actively blocks national legal accommodation of their aspirations, some non-state armed individuals reach outside actors and mobilize to secure their rights under international law or create their own laws. Understanding the patterns of shadowland strategy of non-state armed actors has implications for spotting the moment of their political moderations and gives us clues about how to engage them for the purpose of violence-reduction.

Author

• Hyeran Jo, Texas A&M University