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Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law [MPEPIL]

Suspension of Hostilities

Valentina Azarova, Ido Blum

Content type:
Encyclopedia entries
Product:
Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law [MPIL]

Module:
Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law [MPEPIL]
Article last updated:
September 2015

From: Oxford Public International Law (http://opil.ouplaw.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved.date: 24 January 2021

Subject(s):
Armed forces — Aggression — Self-defence — Conduct of hostilities — Prisoners of war — Belligerence

Published under the auspices of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law under the direction of Professor Anne Peters (2021–) and Professor Rüdiger Wolfrum (2004–2020). 

1 A suspension of hostilities is an agreed cessation of the fighting within a period of war. A number of terms are used to depict a suspension of hostilities, namely, truce, armistice, and ceasefire. 2 Truce is the oldest term, which originally had a religious connotation. A ‘Truce of God’ (Treuga Dei) was a measure by which the Catholic Church suspended warfare on certain days for religious reasons. The term ‘ceasefire’ was introduced into international legal parlance in the post-World War II era. Although some scholars ascribe to truce and ceasefire divergent...
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