On the classical doctrine of civil war in international law

The doctoral dissertation of Ville Kari sets out to find out what happened to the old laws of war, peace and neutrality in intrastate conflicts. Combining extensive research in comprehensive academic libraries and archives with an advanced access to the latest digital databses, the thesis revisits the key sources and documents that once constituted the classical doctrine of civil war in international legal scholarship. The result is an autonomous reassessment of four hundred years of international law of insurgencies and revolutions, both in state practice and in legal scholarship. The findings not only help make the classical doctrine understandable again, but also offer potential new insights for present-day lawyers about the origins, aspirations and vulnerabilities of the legal tradition with which they work today.