Chapter

South Ossetia (2008)

Philip Leach

International law and the classification of conflicts

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2012

p. 317-355

English

Chronologie

This chapter analyses the 2008 South Ossetian armed conflict, involving the States of Georgia and Russia, and the armed forces of the de facto authorities of South Ossetia. Classifying the conflict is not unproblematic. Was it an international armed conflict or a non-international armed conflict? Accordingly, as regards the law of armed conflict, this chapter raises wider questions about the relationship between conflicts. This chapter also discusses the increasingly complex relationship between Hague law, Geneva law and human rights law, and the growing tensions between these various systems of law.

• International law and the classification of conflicts / ed. by Elizabeth Wilmshurst ; Steven Haines... [et al.]