subject: Insurance Issues - Civil War - Part II [print this page] Finally, when dealing with the character and scale of the conflict, was it necessary for each faction to hold a specific portion of territory? Probably not. although it was certainly a factor to take into account together with:
- the number of combatants;
- the number of casualties, military and civilian;
- the amount and nature of the armaments deployed;
- the relative sizes of the territory occupied by the opposing sides;
- the extent to which it is possible to delineate the territories as occupied;
- the degree to which the populace as a whole is involved in the conflict;
- the duration and degree of continuity of the conflict;
- the extent to which public order and the administration of justice have been impaired;
- the degree of interruption to public service and private life;
whether there had been movement of population as a result of the conflict; and
- the extent to which each faction purports to exercise exclusive legislative administrative and judicial powers over the territory which it controls.
Did, therefore, the circumstances existing in January 1976 at Lebanon amount to a civil war?
The court decided that no faction was engaged in a struggle to seize power by violence as at that date. Partition was not a live political issue and the institutions of state were not under violent attack.
There was not a concerted effort to change the constitution by force, and therefore civil war did not exist in its more traditional sense.
Adopting the extended view of civil war, was there in existence "sides" engaged in a struggle between themselves to change the manner in which the state exercised its power? It was not possible to identify specific factions. There were loose alliances of various groups, and the circumstances pointed more towards anarchy than civil war. In particular, there was a lack of control by the political leaders for each alliance or grouping over what actually happened at street level. The fighting was sporadic and, for the most part, unexplainable. Therefore, by January 1976 civil war could not as yet be identified in Beirut.
Insurance Issues - Civil War - Part II
By: Willis J. Watson
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