The objective of this study is twofold. First, it seeks to highlight misconceptions surrounding the concept of non-international armed conflict in international humanitarian law. Second, it advances an argument refining interpretation of the lower threshold of non-international armed conflict. Although the majority of armed conflicts that have occurred since the Second World War may be characterised as non-international, research on the application of international humanitarian law to such situations has been sparse. Substantive scholarship in this area has been discouraged by a number of factors. The extremely complex and highly politicised nature of non-international armed conflict tends to provide an especially difficult subject area for research. Also, many scholars have argued that the distinction between internal and international armed conflict is an unhelpful, artificial one which should ultimately be dispensed with. Contending that the same body of law should apply to all situations of armed conflict, irrespective of their characterisation as either internal or international, publicists have argued against continuing use of the distinction in international humanitarian law. This has, understandably, lessened interest in research on the characterisation of armed conflict. Irrespective of one's position on the merit of the distinction, its recent codification in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides for the continued classification of armed conflict as either international or non-international. Given the frequency of non-international armed conflict, and problems surrounding the application of international humanitarian law in such situations, the lack of scholarship on the subject is regrettable.