Violations of international humanitarian law by United Nations forces and their legal consequences

2003 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 199-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keiichiro Okimoto
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Legal Consequences

There has been a significant amount of discussion on the applicability of international humanitarian law (IHL) to United Nations forces (hereafter, UN forces), and the practice of the UN and states on the matter has gradually developed over the years. Now, there is substantial evidence that IHL is applicable to UN forces. However, as alleged misconduct of UN forces has been increasingly reported, including potential violations of IHL, the legal consequences of such violations have come into question. Thus, this article will not only review the recent developments and remaining issues on the applicability of IHL to UN forces but will also discuss the responsibility of the UN and states for violations of IHL by UN troops as well as individual criminal responsibility of UN troops. The article begins by recalling the conditions in which UN forces have been conducting their activities.

‘Guilty of Having Been Obedient’

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Sarpong Owusu
Keyword(s):  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
War Crimes Trials ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility

Abstract One of the most debated subjects among academics and experts in the fields of International Humanitarian Law and International Criminal Law is the principle of individual criminal responsibility for war crimes. Even more contentious is that aspect of the principle relating to crimes committed under superior orders – a legal strategy employed by many defendants at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. This paper contributes to the debate by establishing the extent to which Article 33 of the Rome Statute, which adopts the conditional liability approach, is justified. The article achieves its objective by critically discussing the subject from a combination of legal, psychological and moral philosophical perspectives. It presents a historical account of the superior orders defence, highlighting how two conflicting liability doctrines, absolute liability and conditional liability, have traditionally been applied by the courts, and taking a stance in favour of the latter. The article, however, underlines some pressing questions that Article 33 raises. It offers a brief exegesis of the emotion of fear to show how it may destroy voluntariness, arguing that as a modifier of voluntariness, grave fear, in certain circumstances, should exculpate perpetrators in claims of crime under superior orders, even where the orders were manifestly unlawful.

Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems

2019 ◽  
pp. 69-96
Author(s):  
Laura A. Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Tort Liability ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Autonomous Weapons ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Weapons Systems

The rise of lethal autonomous weapons systems creates numerous problems for legal regimes meant to ensure public accountability for unlawful uses of force. In particular, international humanitarian law has long relied on enforcement through individual criminal responsibility, which is complicated by autonomous weapons that fragment responsibility for decisions to deploy violence. Accordingly, there may often be no human being with the requisite level of intent to trigger individual responsibility under existing doctrine. In response, perhaps international criminal law could be reformed to account for such issues. Or, in the alternative, greater emphasis on other forms of accountability, such as tort liability and state responsibility might be useful supplements. Another form of accountability that often gets overlooked or dismissed as inconsequential is one that could be termed “administrative accountability.” This chapter provides a close look at this type of accountability and its potential.

The Crime of Indiscriminate Attack and Unlawful Conventional Weapons: The Legacy of the icty Jurisprudence

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Ponti
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Conventional Weapons ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility

The prohibition of indiscriminate attacks, which encompasses either ‘indiscriminate attacks’ stricto sensu and the so-called ‘disproportionate attacks’, is at the heart of the law governing the conduct of hostilities, as it aims to implement two cardinal principles of international humanitarian law (ihl), distinction and proportionality. This contribution examines the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (icty) establishing the individual criminal responsibility for indiscriminate attack. The author considers the possible rationale to illustrate why the icty has never adjudicated neither indiscriminate attacks nor disproportionate attacks per se, as separate, autonomous offences under customary international law. It is submitted that a possible reason to explain the prudency of the icty judges when dealing with the crime of indiscriminate attack is that from an international criminal law perspective it is more than a challenge to apply these ihl principles of distinction and proportionality. The author contends that the icty jurisprudence that practically examined the principle of prohibiting indiscriminate attacks by means of unlawful conventional weapons confirm such difficulties. In particular, because the icty failed to fully clarify to what extent an attack by means of indiscriminate and/or inaccurate weapons violating fundamental principles of the conduct of hostilities, such as distinction and proportionality, may amount to the crime of indiscriminate attack.

Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts

1974 ◽  
Vol 14 (156) ◽  
pp. 117-129
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Recent Developments

The Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts opened in Geneva on 20 February 1974. This Conference was convened by the Swiss Government and is being attended by plenipotentiary representatives of 118 States Parties to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and Members of the United Nations, as well as by many observers for intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. The Conference will sit until 29 March to deal with two additional draft protocols to the Geneva Conventions, which the International Committee of the Red Cross has drawn up with a view to supplementing existing international humanitarian law in the light of recent developments in matters of war.

War Crimes Law Comes of Age

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (3) ◽  
pp. 462-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodor Meron
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility

The rapid and fundamental developments in the last few years on the establishment of individual criminal responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law have been such that it is now an appropriate time to assess their principal features.

scholarly journals Individual Criminal Responsibility for Violations of International Humanitarian Law during non-International Armed Conflict

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Mahmood Khalil Jaffar
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Judicial Decisions ◽  
The Law ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility

         At a time when non-international armed conflicts increase, the importance of studying the application of international humanitarian law in these disputes increases. Criminal responsibility and the consequent effects of violations of international humanitarian law are considered a way prescribed by the law to ensure respect in international armed conflicts and its applicability has been proven.            Jurisprudence and judicial decisions issued by criminal courts confirm possibility of strengthening individual criminal responsibility for violations of international humanitarian law applicable in non-international armed conflicts despite the fact that the international humanitarian law applicable to non-international armed conflicts does not contain mechanisms from which international criminal responsibility of those accused of committing violations arise.

State Liability for Violations of International Humanitarian Law - The Distomo Case Before the German Federal Constitutional Court

2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 701-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Rau
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Federal Constitutional ◽  
State Liability ◽  
German Federal Constitutional Court ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility ◽  
German Federal Constitutional

For quite some time the question of how to cope with violations of international humanitarian law was primarily one of individual criminal responsibility. However, over the last few years, the position of the victims of armed conflict has increasingly come into focus. In particular, attention has been given to the issue of reparations, including compensation, for breaches of international humanitarian law.

The application of humanitarian law by the armed forces of the United Nations Organization

1978 ◽  
Vol 18 (206) ◽  
pp. 274-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Sandoz
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
The United Nations

The events in Lebanon and the despatch of a UN armed force to keep the peace there brings into focus a problem which cannot be ignored, the application of international humanitarian law in armed conflicts. This problem has two aspects:— What is the nature of the armed forces which the UN commits or can commit at the present time?— To what extent are these armed forces obliged to apply humanitarian law?

Intervention Brigades in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and Challenges Posed to International Humanitarian Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Verda Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Peace And Conflict Studies ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Alternative Approach

In recent decades, the United Nations (UN) has directed its peacekeeping operations to be practice-driven. This has led to an alternative approach to state-military contacts, such as those provided by the United States and other nations; the UN is more inclined to consolidate and strengthen its liaisons through Intervention Brigades. The efficacy of these brigades lies in providing military assistance to UN operations and catering to logistics, training, and advice. Advocates of peace, the UN peacekeeping operations (UNPKOs) are based on consent, impartiality, and non-utilization of force (excluding times of civilian protection and self-defense). However, as Intervention Brigades gain momentum, 'robust' peacekeeping is becoming more regulated; thus, promoting 'force' against rebel groups and/or militias. When aligned with robust Intervention Brigades, which utilizes more force than lawfully permitted, UN peacekeeping (UNPK) missions question these operations' credibility, thus blurring the conceptual difference between peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Conspicuously, this exploits the traditional principle of impartiality using hard power and violates the International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Exemplifying through the case study of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this paper aims to discuss the abovementioned discrepancy resulting in complications for the discipline of Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS). As the discipline promotes achieving peace through „soft‟ means, the paper reviews the subject under Chapter VI & VII of the UN charter and highlights the grey areas of IHL applicability in UN peacekeeping and Intervention Brigades.

International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law

1993 ◽  
Vol 33 (293) ◽  
pp. 94-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Doswald-Beck ◽  
Sylvain Vité
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The United Nations

International humanitarian law is increasingly perceived as part of human rights law applicable in armed conflict. This trend can be traced back to the United Nations Human Rights Conference held in Tehran in 1968 which not only encouraged the development of humanitarian law itself, but also marked the beginning of a growing use by the United Nations of humanitarian law during its examination of the human rights situation in certain countries or during its thematic studies. The greater awareness of the relevance of humanitarian law to the protection of people in armed conflict, coupled with the increasing use of human rights law in international affairs, means that both these areas of law now have a much greater international profile and are regularly being used together in the work of both international and non-governmental organizations.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document