The legal production of “the civilian” in contemporary war

How is “the civilian” made knowable in contemporary war? This article argues that civilian status is increasingly produced as an epistemic outcome at the intersection of international humanitarian law (IHL) status categories, surveillance governance, and evidentiary/justificatory regimes. Through a socio-legal reading of treaty law, ICRC commentaries, military manuals, civilian-harm mitigation policies, selected jurisprudence, and public justifications, it traces two coupled production loops: pre-strike classification (pattern-of-life inference, metadata, probabilistic thresholds) and post-strike recognition (recording, investigation, secrecy, and narrative closure). The analysis shows how the presumption of civilian status in doubt can be practically inverted by risk-calculus and intelligence “confidence”, while accountability mechanisms can stabilise or erase civilianhood through files, standards of proof, and disclosure practices.