New drug trafficking armed groups in Colombia and the applicability of International Humanitarian Law

Abstract

Colombian’s new drug trafficking groups show us a violent scenario that must be carefully analyze. The level of violence and deathly consequences that can be attributable to them must make us pay attention of the law that is applicable to them and to the Colombian armed forces when they are acting against those groups. In Colombia, the government and authorities have admitted an easy position, establishing that these new groups –called
BACRIM- are simply gangs or common delinquency, while they in many occasions act as something else. Accordingly, the purpose on this paper is to analyze the particular case of one of these groups in relation to the applicability of International Humanitarian Law rules of non-international armed conflicts, seeking to contribute to the discussion about which regulatory framework is applicable to this phenomenon.