Legal Basis for Obliging Organized Armed Groups to Respect and Implement Humanitarian Law in Internal Armed Conflict

While today it is widely accepted that organized armed groups are obliged to respect and implement international humanitarian law, however, given the nature of the State-centric of international law as well as the incapacity of organized armed groups to ratify and accede to international instruments, the legal basis for Obliging organized armed groups to respect and implement international humanitarian law and how to do so is vague. Legal writers and international tribunals have presented various arguments and opinions to determine the legal basis of obligation of organized armed groups to respect and implement international humanitarian law. These arguments are: customary international law, general principles of law, the consent of organized armed groups, the theory of succession, and theory of legislative jurisdiction. It should be noted that this is not just an academic debate, but this issue is of great importance when international criminal courts and tribunals try to enforce the principle of the legality of crime and punishment. In this paper, while analyzing these arguments, given the shortcomings and deficiencies that the other arguments have, we conclude that the theory of legislative jurisdiction is a good argument for obliging organized armed groups to respect and implement international humanitarian law.