The first time non-international armed conflict was paid international attention was in the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. It applies to armed conflicts ‘not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties’. While the conflict must take place on the territory of a State Party, it does not necessarily have to involve the armed forces of the state, but could also involve two or more armed groups. From the humanitarian standpoint, non-international armed conflicts pose a unique challenge as there is a huge likelihood of indiscriminate attacks being launched against groups of people, villages or towns. These attacks may be carried out using more or less the same kind of arms and ammunition used by armed forces of a state. Keeping this in mind, the provisions of Article 3 were developed and supplemented by Geneva Protocol II of 1977. In recent decades though, the protocol to deal with such conflicts has come under scrutiny. With cases such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Syria, Rwanda, among others, that have been praised and criticized equally, the need for a leak-proof mechanism to counter such an event has grown urgent. How does the United Nations respond to a conflict within a State, while at the same time respecting its sovereignty? Moreover, when does a non-international armed conflict cross the border into becoming an international armed conflict? And when the government itself is belligerent, how is it determined if it still exercises sovereignty over that nation?