Suicide Attacks in International Humanitarian Law: Culture, Agency, and Combatant Deaths

Suicide Attacks and International Humanitarian Law critically examines the absence of explicit provisions in International Humanitarian Law addressing the deaths of suicide attackers, offering robust and culturally plural frameworks for rethinking intentionality and agency within international legal discourse. Although International Humanitarian Law regulates various aspects of warfare, it remains silent on suicide attacks. Suicide Attacks and International Humanitarian Law interrogates this omission, arguing that it reflects underlying biases and rigid binaries within International Humanitarian Law that struggle to accommodate complex narratives of agency surrounding the deaths of suicide attackers. In this comparative study, Vishakha V. Wijenayake juxtaposes International Humanitarian Law principles with cultural narratives surrounding three distinct cases: the Kamikaze pilots of World War II, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's female suicide attackers in the Sri Lankan non-International Armed Conflict, and martyrdom operations conducted by jihadist non-State armed groups. Integrating insights from anthropology, philosophy, and religious studies, this book analyzes the nuanced embodiments of agency in these contexts, revealing how cultural depictions of suicide attackers challenge International Humanitarian Law's traditional victim-perpetrator binary. These narratives present suicide attackers not as passive instruments of violence, but as individuals whose actions are laden with cultural and collective meanings that unsettle International Humanitarian Law's reductive approach to combatant agency. Through its analysis, Suicide Attacks and International Humanitarian Law forwards a critical framework for engaging with diverse conceptions of intentionality and agency, advocating for more culturally inclusive approaches within International Humanitarian Law.