Applicability of International Humanitarian Law to Contemporary Armed Conflicts in Nigeria: Highlighting the Legal Uncertainties of IHL

This paper examines the legal uncertainties surrounding the applicability of International Humanitarian Law with particular respect to the conflict situation in Nigeria, which includes the agitations from the Independent peoples of Biafra; Fulani Herdsmen crisis and the Boko Haram insurgency. International humanitarian Law is the branch of Public international Law with the purpose of mitigating the harsh effect of armed conflict by protecting those who do not or are no longer participating in armed conflict. The aim of this paper is to highlight the legal uncertainties inherent in the legal classification of conflicts especially the legal parameters in the determination of internal armed conflict and the threshold required for internal conflicts to reach before the provisions of IHL can be invoked The doctrinal methodology of research was employed, examining the primary sources of IHL: the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and its Additional Protocol 1977; jurisprudential analysis of international court was done and other secondary sources of Law were examined . The paper finds that going by the provisions of the Law; most of the conflicts ongoing are neither internal nor international, posing a challenge to the applicability of IHL. It questions the relevance of classification of conflicts in contemporary times given the foremost philosophical foundation of IHL-humanity. Given the prominence of this kind of conflict, this paper finds amongst others that classification of conflicts is otiose and of no relevance in contemporary times. It is recommended that the provisions of the Geneva Conventions be reviewed to accommodate present day realities if the goal of IHL is to be achieved.