The Criminal Law

The Criminal Law

The Criminal Law

Introduction

War Crimes War crimes are crimes in opposition to the regulations of warfare more recently termed the regulations of armed conflict or humanitarian law. This entry examines four key issues: (1) what are war crimes? (2) Where does the notion come from? (3) What do we know about war crimes? And (4) what can we do about them? Definitions of the laws of war can be separated into two types: (1) laws concerning the regulation of methods and means of combat, such as proscription of the exploiting the toxic gas, which is stressed in the Hague Convention of 1907, and (2) regulations of armed clash regarding the defense of human beings, such as the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Protocols (Khadduri and Majid, 2006). The Geneva Convention can be broken down into rules pertaining to the protection of military personnel or combatants and those pertaining to the protection of civilians. The violation of both types of law, namely the methods of combat and the protection of people, can produce sufferers. Victimologists, however, prefer a victim-focused definition of war crimes, such as the one found in the 1985 United Nations Statement of fundamental values of Justice for sufferers of offense and misuse of supremacy. According to Article 18 of the UN Declaration, victims are"persons who, individually or collectively, have suffered harm, including physical or mental injury, emotional suffering, economic loss or substantial impairment of their fundamental rights, through acts or omissions that do not yet constitute a violation of national criminal laws but of internationally recognized norms relating to human rights."

Based on this definition, victims include both individuals and groups. Collective victims are created when violent actions are directed at a specific population, for example, an ethnic, ideological, or religious group (Forsythe and David, 2005). This definition is sufficiently broad that it includes both direct and indirect victims. Direct victims are those who have suffered the direct effects of violence. These are the individuals who were killed, tortured, raped, and so on. Indirect victims are those who are linked to direct victims in such a way that they too suffer because of that link, for example, the victim's family. Most war crimes occur by the military personnel. However, any person, including civilians, can be a perpetrator. Individuals, acting in either an official capacity (e.g. police) or a private capacity, can commit war crimes (Carey, John, Dunlap and William, 2003).

However, victim and offender groups are not mutually exclusive: A person can be a victim at one time and an offender at another time. By definition, war crimes can only occur within the context of a war or armed conflict. However, sometimes it may not be easy to establish whether a conflict is a war despite obvious, serious violations of human rights. Crimes against humanity refer too many of the same types of offenses against human beings, such as torture, rape, and murder. But unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can take place in times of peace as well as in times of war.

Definitions and Discussion

Generic Definition

A war offense is a serious breach of the rules, regulations and customs of conflict committed in an armed conflict. A crime based on the serious infringement of global humanitarian regulations, that is to say breach of ...