Persons participate directly in hostilities when they carry out acts, which aim to support one party to the conflict by directly causing harm to another party, either directly inflicting death, injury or destruction, or by directly harming the enemy’s military operations or capacity. If and for as long as civilians carry out such acts, they are directly participating in hostilities and lose their protection against attack.
Examples of causing military harm to another party include capturing, wounding or killing military personnel; damaging military objects; or restricting or disturbing military deployment, logistics and communication, for example through sabotage, erecting road blocks or interrupting the power supply of radar stations. Interfering electronically with military computer networks (computer network attacks) and transmitting tactical targeting intelligence for a specific attack are also examples. The use of time-delayed weapons such as mines or booby-traps, remote-controlled weapon systems such as unmanned aircraft, also “directly” causes harm to the enemy and, therefore, amounts to direct participation in hostilities.
“Indirect” participation in hostilities contributes to the general war effort of a party, but does not directly cause harm and, therefore, does not lead to a loss of protection against direct attack. This would include, for example, the production and shipment of weapons, the construction of roads and other infrastructure, and financial, administrative and political support.
The difference between “direct” and “indirect” participation can be difficult to establish but is vital. For example, the delivery by a civilian truck driver of ammunition to a shooting position at the front line would almost certainly have to be regarded as an integral part of ongoing combat operations and would therefore constitute direct participation in hostilities. However, transporting ammunition from a factory to a port far from a conflict zone is too incidental to the use of that ammunition in specific military operations to be considered as “directly” causing harm. Although the ammunition truck remains a military objective subject to attack, driving it would not amount to direct participation in hostilities and, therefore, the civilian driver could not be targeted separately from the truck.
Not all violent acts occurring in an armed conflict amount to direct participation in hostilities. In order to constitute direct participation, a violent act must not only be objectively likely to directly cause harm, but it must also be specifically designed to do so in support of one party to an armed conflict and to the detriment of another. A violent political demonstrations, a bank robbery unrelated to the war, or an incident where large numbers of fleeing civilians block a road, not to help one party to an armed conflict but to try to protect themselves from the hostilities, are examples of acts that do not amount to direct participation in hostilities.
Source : Icrc
