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Topic:

International War Crimes

By-
Daminee Sharma
Assistant Professor

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TYPES OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMES

According to the IHL-

A. War Crimes
B. Crime against humanity
C. Genocide
D. Torture

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War Crimes

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1. The term “war crimes” refers to serious breaches of

international humanitarian law committed against civilian or
enemy combatants during an international or domestic armed
conflict.
2. For which the perpetrator may be held criminally liable on an
individual basis.
3. Derived primarily from Geneva conventions of 12 August
1949
4. Additional protocols I and II of 1977, and the Hague
Convention of 1899 and 1907.
5. Their most recent codification can be found in Article 8 of the
1998 of Rome Statute for International Criminal Court (ICC)
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Grave breaches of Geneva Conventions

● Willful killing or causing great suffering or serious injury to body and

health
● Torture or in humen treatment
● Unlawful destruction or appropriation of property.
● Forcing a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of a hostile power
● Depriving prisoner of war of a fair trial.
● Unlawful deportation, confinement, transfer
● Taking hostages
● Directing attack against civilians
● Directing attack against humanitrian workers or UN peace keepers
● Killing a surrendered combatant

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Crime Against Humanity

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• Crime against humanity are serious human

right violations committed as part of a
widespread or systematic attack against
civilain population.

• Many courts, including the ICC, require the

proof that the conduct formed part of
governmental or organizational policy

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 ICC Article-7 Your Institute Name

1. Murder;
2. Extermination;
3. Enslavement;
4. Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
5. Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical
liberty in violation of fundamental rules of
international law;
6. Torture;
7. Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced
pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of
sexual violence of comparable gravity 8
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8. Persecution against any identifiable group or

collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic,
cultural, religious, gender or other grounds that are
universally recognized as impermissible under
international law.

9. Enforced disappearance of persons;

10. The crime of apartheid;

11. Other inhumane acts of a similar character

intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury 9
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Genocide

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• Genocide take place when certain act or acts are committed

with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethical,racial,or religious group.
• It may involve killing, causing serious bodily harm, inflicting
conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction, imposing measures to prevent death or forcibly
transfering children of the group to another group.
• The term genocide is often misused as the crime is not one
which is neccessarily defined by numbers, but define by
specific intent of the perpetrators to not only harm the victims
but done to destroy the group as such.
• Example included the Holocust and the Rewandan Genocide
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 Article-2 of ICTR Your Institute Name

Since it is initially formulated in 1948, in article 2

of the convention of prevention and Punishment
of the crime of genocide,the definition of
‘genocide’ has remained substantially the same.
Article 6 of Rome Convention borrow from this
convention

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 Article 2 of ICTR Your Institute Name

For the purpose of this Statute, "genocide" means any of the

following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in
part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the
group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
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