Colombia
Practice Relating to Rule 88. Non-Discrimination
Colombia’s Circular on Fundamental Rules of IHL (1992) provides: “Persons placed
hors de combat or who do not participate directly in the hostilities … shall be protected … without any adverse distinction.”
Colombia’s Soldiers’ Manual (1999) and Instructors’ Manual (1999) provide:
All persons are born free and equal before the law, receive the same protection and treatment from the authorities and possess the same rights, freedoms and opportunities without any discrimination based on sex, race, family or nationality, origin, language, religion or political or philosophical opinion.
In 2005, in the Constitutional Case No. C-203/05, the Plenary Chamber of Colombia’s Constitutional Court stated:
As members of the civilian population affected by internal armed conflicts, children and adolescents have the right to respect for the fundamental guarantees granted to all persons not actively participating in hostilities, as established by Article 3 common to the [1949] Geneva Conventions … In accordance with this Article, in cases of non-international armed conflicts in the territory of one of the Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply certain minimum guarantees without affecting their legal status as parties to the conflict, including: (1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities shall be treated humanely in all circumstances without adverse distinction based on discriminatory criteria.
In 2007, in the Constitutional Case No. C-291/07, the Plenary Chamber of Colombia’s Constitutional Court stated:
Taking into account … the development of customary international humanitarian law applicable in internal armed conflicts, the Constitutional Court notes that the fundamental guarantees stemming from the principle of humanity, some of which have attained
ius cogens status, … [include] prohibition of discrimination in the application of international humanitarian law.

[footnote in original omitted]
Colombia’s Penal Code (2000) imposes a criminal sanction on “anyone who, during an armed conflict, orders or carries out against protected persons practices of racial segregation or other inhuman or degrading practices based on racial discrimination and which result in outrages upon personal dignity”.
In 2007, in the Constitutional Case No. C-291/07, the Plenary Chamber of Colombia’s Constitutional Court stated:
[T]he essential principles of international humanitarian law have acquired
ius cogens status, based on the fact that the international community as a whole has recognised their peremptory and imperative nature in the same way it has recognised this for other cardinal provisions such as … the prohibition of apartheid.