Party Status to Armed Conflict in International Law

The question of what constitutes an armed conflict has featured prominently in international law debates. However, international lawyers have paid less attention to the inextricable question of who is engaged in a conflict, focusing solely on whether there is an armed conflict.

Against this backdrop, Alexander Wentker’s Party Status to Armed Conflict in International Law explores why it matters and how it is established that a State, international organization, or armed group is a party to an armed conflict. The first part of the book demonstrates that party status is central at all levels of the international legal regulation of armed conflicts, with parties to armed conflict being both key addressees of international law and central reference points for regulating individuals and third parties. In response to increasingly widespread cooperation practices, the book’s second part advances an analytical framework for identifying parties to conflicts with multiple parties on the same side (or ’co-parties’).

Party Status to Armed Conflict in International Law is a must-read for academics, students, and practitioners seeking to understand how armed conflicts are legally regulated. It presents readers with a refined account of how responsibilities are allocated in armed conflicts, enabling deeper insight into how international law can best respond to the realities of contemporary conflicts.

Alexander Wentker, Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law

Alexander Wentker is a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. He teaches public law and international law at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin. Alexander is a fully qualified German lawyer and holds a doctorate in law and an MJur from the University of Oxford as well as a Maîtrise en droit from Université Paris II-Panthéon-Assas. He is a former clerk of the Supreme Court of Namibia and has worked with the foreign affairs think tank Chatham House.