VARIA: La “Zona grigia” tra guerra e pace nel diritto internazionale e costituzionale
The “gray area” between war and peace in international and constitutional law

Summary/Abstract: In contemporary international relations, the “gray zone” denotes the space between peace and war where creeping crises and limited coercion unfold.These situations—variously labelled gray-zone conflict or hybrid warfare—remain beneath the threshold of open hostilities yet go beyond ordinary peacetime competition. Their legal ambiguity strains existing frameworks:international law traditionally draws a sharp line between war and peace, while constitutional democracies are designed to govern the use of force mainly informally declared wars. This chapter maps the gray zone’s historical emergence and the responses offered by international and constitutional law. It (a) traces the shift from classical ius ad bellum to the post-1945 prohibition on the threat or use of force and to the factual notion of “armed conflict” in IHL; (b) analyses the regulatory vacuum surrounding states of international “crisis” in light of theUN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the law of State responsibility; (c)examines constitutional implications for democratic control, emergency powers and rights-protection when force is used absent a formal state of war; and (d)illustrates the argument with historical and current case studies—from the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis to recent Russia–West relations. Drawing on primary instruments and scholarship, the chapter highlights the intersections between constitutional law and international (especially humanitarian) law in these ambiguous contexts.

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