Communication 431/12 – Thomas Kwoyelo v. Uganda Uganda’s territory. Notwithstanding that the conflict has thus spilled over to neighbouring countries particularly DRC and Central African Republic, this on its own does not deprive it of its Non-International character. As Knut Dormann has rightly observed: ’[I]t is important to bear in mind that NIACs may take different forms, ranging from classical civil war situations with armed violence essentially occurring within the confines of one single territory between government armed forces or other organized armed opposition groups, to NIACs spilling over to neighbouring countries, and to armed conflict situations in which multinational forces intervene on the side of a host government against organized armed opposition groups.’34 146. Therefore, the armed conflict between the troops of the Government of Uganda and the LRA meets the second element of the definition of NIAC, despite its transnational character. 147. The third and fourth elements entail that the dissident or opposition armed group, in this instance the LRA, is an organized force with command and control and that it engages in protracted combat or direct hostilities with the armed forces of the State. The LRA has possessed organization involving clear leadership and command and control structures. The level of organization that enabled it to prosecute a long armed rebellion in Northern Uganda qualifies the LRA as a dissident armed force or other organized group under Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. The LRA has also been engaged in protracted armed combat and hence in direct hostilities with the Ugandan armed force. On both level of organization of the LRA and the nature of the armed confrontation, the situation in the case at hand can thus be considered a NIAC to which the IHL rules relating Knut Dormann, Detention in Non-International Armed Conflicts in Kenneth Watkin & Andrew J. Norris (Eds), Non-International Armed Conflict in the Twenty-first Century, International Law Studies 88, (2012), p. 347. See also International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), International Humanitarian Law and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts, Report of the 31 st International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Geneva, Switzerland, 28 November – 1 December 2011, p. 9. 34 38 62nd Ordinary Session, 25 April – 9 July 2018