2025 Theses Master's

Refugees, IDPs, and the Law of War: Toward Recognition of Displacement as a Distinct Vulnerability

McGathy, Gracyn

This thesis advances the argument that displacement itself constitutes a distinct form of vulnerability within armed conflict, one that international humanitarian law (IHL) has yet to recognize. While civilians are broadly protected under existing legal frameworks, refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) face compounded risks that far exceed those of non-displaced populations. Their high concentration in camps, reliance on humanitarian aid for survival, and loss of critical assets and social networks transform them into deliberate targets for states and armed groups.

Through doctrinal analysis, case law review, and comparative legal reasoning, this thesis demonstrates how displaced populations are systematically targeted through three primary modalities: manipulated migration flows, direct attacks on camps, and obstruction or pillaging of humanitarian aid. Yet international prosecutions have consistently collapsed these crimes into the generic category of “attacks on civilians,” obscuring the heightened cruelty of exploiting displacement.

Drawing on the concept of vulnerability as articulated in both legal scholarship and domestic sentencing regimes, this study argues that displacement warrants recognition as a basis for special protection under IHL. Just as the law affords heightened safeguards to women, children, the sick, and prisoners of war, so too must it acknowledge the unique exposure of refugees and IDPs. Recognizing displacement as a distinct vulnerability would sharpen accountability, strengthen deterrence, and affirm the gravity of harm inflicted on populations already rendered defenseless.

The thesis concludes with three prescriptive proposals: designating refugee and IDP camps as protected “safe zones,” codifying crimes against the displaced as aggravating factors in sentencing, and establishing tailored safeguards to ensure safe passage, humanitarian access, and protection from exploitation. By foregrounding displacement as a legally relevant condition, this thesis seeks to close a profound protection gap within international humanitarian law. At a moment of record global displacement and increasingly urbanized conflict, failure to address this blind spot risks normalizing atrocities against those least able to protect themselves