Do rebel group violations of international humanitarian law during civil war—in particular, attacks on noncombatant civilians—affect conflict outcomes? I argue that in the post-Cold War era, rebel groups that do not target civilians have used the framework of international humanitarian law to appeal for diplomatic support from Western governments and intergovernmental organizations. However, rebel group appeals for international diplomatic support are most likely to be effective when the rebel group can contrast its own restraint toward civilians with the government's abuses. Rebel groups that do not target civilians in the face of government abuses, therefore, are likely to be able to translate increased international diplomatic support into more favorable conflict outcomes. Using original cross-national data on rebel group violence against civilians in all civil wars from 1989 to 2010, I show that rebel groups that exercise restraint toward civilians in the face of government violence are more likely to secure favorable conflict outcomes. I also probe the causal mechanism linking rebel group behavior to conflict outcomes, showing that when a rebel group exercises restraint toward civilians and the government commits atrocities, Western governments and intergovernmental organizations are more likely to take coercive diplomatic action against the government. The evidence shows that rebel groups can translate this increased diplomatic support into favorable political outcomes.

In this article we evaluate ∼48km2 of airborne lidar data collected at a target density of 15 laser shots/m in central Yucatán, Mexico. This area covers parts of the sites of Chichén Itzá and Yaxuná, a kilometer-wide transect between these two sites, and a transect along the first few kilometers of Sacbé 1 from Yaxuná to Cobá. The results of our ground validation and mapping demonstrate that not all sizable archaeological features can be detected in the lidar images due to: (1) the slightly rolling topography interspersed with 1-6 m-high bedrock hummocks, which morphologically mimic house mounds, further complicated by the presence of low foundations; (2) the complex forest structure in central Yucatán, which has particularly dense near-ground understory resulting in a high number of mixed-signal ground and low vegetation returns which reduces the fidelity and accuracy of the bare-earth digital elevation models; and (3) the predominance of low archaeological features difficult to discern from the textural noise of the near-ground vegetation. In this article we explore different visualization techniques to increase the identification of cultural features, but we conclude that, in this portion of the Maya region, lidar should be used as a complement to traditional on-the-ground survey techniques.