ICRC, Disintegration of State Structures

[Source: Preparatory Document Drafted by the International Committee of the Red Cross for the First Periodical Meeting on International Humanitarian Law, Geneva, January 19-23, 1998; original document in French, footnotes partially omitted.]

Under international law, a State is an entity that has a defined territory and a permanent population, under the control of its own government, and that engages in, or has the capacity to engage in, formal relations with other such entities.

The disintegration of State structures seems to occur when the third constitutive element of statehood, a government in effective control, fades away. [...]

A situation of this type has roots that go much deeper than a mere rebellion or coup d’état. It involves the implosion of national institutions, authority, law and order, in short the body politic as a whole. It also implies the breakdown of a set of values on which the State’s legitimacy is based, often resulting in a withdrawal of the population into a form of nationalism which is based on religious or ethnic affiliation and which becomes a residual and viable form of identity. In most cases, when State structures collapse, the maintenance of law and order as well as other forms of authority fall into the hands of various factions. The State itself does not physically disappear, but gradually loses the capacity to carry out the normal functions of government.

The disintegration of the State occurs at various levels of intensity and may affect different parts of the country. At the low end of the spectrum, the government may remain in office but have only little control over the population and the territory. At a higher level of disintegration, certain crucial structures may formally remain in operation, so that the State can still be legitimately represented before the international community but is nevertheless composed of several warring factions. The government is in effect no longer characterized by uncontested power and a monopoly on the use of force. The regular armed forces, which are often one of the only institutions remaining in these weakened States, also gradually fall apart. A particularly alarming development is the proliferation of veritable private armies and “security” detachments, which are often nothing but branches of conglomerates with economic interests and which are free of any real State control.

The next level in the process is marked by the total implosion of government structures, so that the State is no longer legitimately represented before the international community. Chaos and crime – already widespread during the preceding phases and often foreshadowing total disintegration – become generalized and the factions no longer exercise effective control over their members and have no clearly established chain of command. There are no valid representatives with whom humanitarian organizations can talk and insecurity becomes a real problem.

The armed conflicts which arose or evolved in such a context have brought and continue to bring humanitarian organizations face to face with new challenges and growing difficulties. These conflicts have been defined in turn “destructured” or “anarchic”. [...] We have chosen to use the term “anarchic” conflicts in this document.

1.   Characteristics

On the basis of an analysis of several conflicts involving the disintegration of State structures in which the ICRC and other humanitarian organizations have found it most difficult to perform their work and to keep their bearings, the essential characteristics of these internal conflicts may be described as follows:

• the disintegration of the organs of the central government, which is no longer able to exercise its rights or perform its duties in relation to the territory and the population;
• the presence of many armed factions;
• divided control of the national territory;
• the breakdown of the chain of command within the various factions and their militias.

These characteristics are generally closely interconnected. They are fundamental and cumulative, for in the absence of any one of them, the conflict in question would not be “anarchic” within the meaning we ascribe to it. On the other hand, they may be found, and hence a conflict may be described as “anarchic”, only at a certain stage in the hostilities. [...]

2.   The effects in humanitarian terms

Internal conflicts, which were financed from abroad during the years of the Cold War, now tend to be waged within an autarkic kind of war economy based on robbery and illicit traffic. This has led to a splintering of guerrilla movements, which the providers of external aid had, often artificially, regarded as united. When a movement or faction relies exclusively on robbery and contraband for its subsistence, it is drawn into a spiral of crime in which every small group, or even every individual, acts for himself.

The ICRC has found from its direct experience in the field that these effects tend to be greater in “anarchic conflicts”. Indeed, in conflicts that take place amid the disintegration of State structures, the civilian population is often directly at stake, since the aim of each faction is to acquire living space.

The main humanitarian effects of this type of conflict are:

1. Humanitarian organizations are obliged to establish and to maintain at all times contacts with each of the various factions and with a plethora of their representatives. This is necessary in order for them to understand the social, political and economic context in which they are called upon to work; to thwart attempts at manipulating humanitarian assistance on the part of various factions wishing to cultivate or acquire supporters through the distribution of humanitarian aid; and to ensure the safety of local and expatriate humanitarian staff. The extreme individualization of the factions has made contacts and negotiations very uncertain. Every soldier – adult or child – virtually becomes a spokesperson, or in any case someone with whom to negotiate.

2. The more fragmented the territory is by fighting between the factions involved in a conflict, the less civilians will be likely to identify with the dominant local faction, and therefore remain in their places of origin. This leads to mass population movements, both within the national borders (internally displaced people) and beyond them (refugees). [...]

3. Because of the prevailing chaos, discipline among the troops is rare and in extreme cases every combatant is his own commander. Accordingly, the concept of a “war ethic” becomes a delusion, while rape, kidnapping, hostage-taking, looting and other penal-law crimes become practi