| dc.description.abstract | The study sets out to investigate the whether there were International Humanitarian Law (lHL) violations in Kenya's 2007 post election violence. It adopts the pluralist theory which considers the limited power of the state in the context of a dynamic society. The study analyses the conceptual and theoretical debates in the development of IHL specifying that it only applies in armed conflicts. The debates that emerge relate to the qualification and definition of internal conflict, sovereignty and responsibility for gross violations of human rights norms and the stages in internal violence.
In its discourses it considers the provisions of the common Article 3, common to the Geneva conventions of 1949, the Additional Protocol II of 1977, the Rome Statute and judgments from international tribunals like the Yugoslav and Rwandan Tribunals. The study also examines electoral violence in relation to internal armed conflicts and IHL. It examines electoral violence in Kenya with particular reference to Kenya's 2007 post election violence. In so doing, it seeks to find out whether there are violations of IHL in internal armed conflicts.
It also seeks to find out whether there is a relationship between IHL and internal armed conflicts.
Concerning the methodology, the study adopts a case study design and has used both interviews and library research. The two instruments assisted in collecting primary and secondary data respectively. The primary data mainly focuses on Kenya's experiences of the 2007 post election violence while the secondary data examines the development of International Humanitarian Law (lHL) and its various aspects in regulating internal armed conflicts. The data collected was qualitatively analysed against the hypotheses of the study.
The study finds that there are gross violations of human rights in internal armed conflicts. It also establishes that there were IHL violations in Kenya's 2007 post election violence. | en_US |
