That last question is something that a lot of people
are arguing at the moment, but it's also the
easiest one to answer.
So, let's get it out of the way quickly.
War crimes are never justifiable,
and answering war crimes with more war crimes
is completely unacceptable.
It doesn't matter who started the war,
It doesn't matter who is right or wrong in starting the war.
It doesn't matter
that one party may have done something horrible
and the other party thinks that they're justified.
There is no justification.
Okay, So with that sorted, let's break
the rest of this down into four different parts.
Who decides what a war crime is?
What are the different types of war crimes?
How is evidence collected
and how are war criminals brought to justice?
The concept of the rules of war goes back a long time,
But only recently did most of the world agree
on how wars should be conducted.
This is known as international humanitarian law,
and it's made up of a patchwork
of different treaties and conventions,
like the Geneva Conventions, which were created after World
War II.
Because international humanitarian law
is pulling from a number of different sources,
not all countries agree on every single law within it.
They may recognise one convention, but not another
and this is where things start to get a little bit complicated,
but pretty much every country recognises the core idea
that it's not about stopping the killing of enemy fighters.
it's about trying to minimise suffering and protect
people that aren't involved in the fighting
like civilians or soldiers that have surrendered.
So, what are the different types of war crimes?
When answering this question, human rights groups often point
to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,
which breaks things down into three different categories:
war crimes, crimes against humanity
and genocide.
There's a bit of overlap between the three things,
but they're largely considered to be separate.
When it comes to war crimes, and this may seem obvious, it's
when you break the rules of war during an armed conflict
and there are a lot of different
crimes that fall under this category,
like killing civilians, torture and taking hostages,
but it can also cover things like denying medical care,
or attacking historical monuments,
or forcing people to leave their homes,
and it's not just what you do during a conflict, but
also how you conduct yourself when you're actually fighting.
That can mean using child soldiers
or using civilians as human shields,
for example, firing missiles from inside a crowded school
because your enemy
can't retaliate without putting civilians at risk.
There's also something called collective punishment,
which is punishing a group of people
that may not be involved in the conflict
just because you suspect
that some of the people living there might be enemy soldiers.
And then there's the use of certain weapons.
They may be considered inhumane because they cause unnecessary suffering,
or it could be because they're indiscriminate,
so, not targeted and likely to cause
collateral damage and harm civilians.
A lot of these crimes may seem pretty straightforward,
but where things start to get a bit murky
is when proportionality comes into it.
In international humanitarian law, there is an acceptance
that there will be some civilian losses,
but it's anticipated military advantage has to outweigh that.
basically if your military goal is considered important enough
and you take steps to minimize collateral damage
by giving warnings beforehand or using targeted attacks,
civilians can die without it
being considered a war crime.
The next category covers crimes against humanity, which are a
step up from war crimes, at least in terms of scale.
that it has to be committed
as part of a widespread or systematic attack.
and it needs to be directed against any civilian population.
So A war crime can be the death of just one person,
whereas crimes against humanity
are often organized campaigns with the aim
of killing or torturing or displacing
a large group of civilians over a period of time.
Another big difference is that crimes against humanity
don't need to take place during a conflict.
think apartheid in South Africa, or the way that Joseph Stalin
used to make
his political opponents disappear in the Soviet Union.
The final category is genocide.
What separates genocide from crimes
against humanity is that the end goal needs to be
the complete destruction of an entire group of people.
For example, during the Holocaust,
in which 6 million Jews were killed,
the goal of the Nazis was to exterminate
the Jewish people completely.
Genocide also doesn't technically
have to involve killing.
It could take the form of trying to starve
a group of people or taking away their children.
Now, when it comes to proving war crimes, human
rights groups play a big role in the collection of evidence.
We spent thousands of hours researching,
monitoring and documenting human rights abuses
in an effort to put perpetrators to justice.
that can involve interviewing witnesses and survivors,
working with local organizations and journalists,
and going through huge amounts of photos
and videos to try to reconstruct events, When you're building
a case, you're not relying on one piece of evidence.
You're relying on a patchwork of information
that can piece it together and also be corroborated.
So There are plenty of
challenges that come with collecting evidence,
like needing to work in active war
zones, going through huge amounts of data
and then having to verify everything.
Sometimes there's just too much there's so much coming up.
So once all of the evidence is collected, what happens next?
Human rights groups create detailed reports and pass them
on to international bodies or governments
that might follow it up with another investigation.
Or they might be passed on to groups that will
then use that evidence to build a legal case.
some human rights groups like Fortify Rights even
go as far as pursuing legal cases themselves,
actually prosecuting war criminals in court,
however, is challenging for a number of reasons.
Proving that a war crime has simply
taken place can be straightforward.
But actually linking it to an individual,
especially if they're someone high ranking
that wasn't directly involved on the ground, can be very tough.
And it's those high ranking officials that are often
the ones that end up in court because of how
expensive and time consuming these types of cases are
it can also be quite difficult to prove the more extreme acts
because you also need to prove intent.
And even before you get to
any of these issues, there's the problem of actually
finding a court that will take your case.
It's often not possible to go to court in the country
where the crime was committed
because the country may still be at war or it may be
the government that has committed the crime,
you know, often you find that they obviously
won't investigate themselves.
there
are international tribunals and courts
like the International Criminal Court.
But it's powers are limited
because not every country recognizes its authority,
For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin
has an arrest warrant out for war crimes with the ICC.
But as long as he avoids countries
that recognize the ICC,
he he likely won't have to face trial.
Another option are the domestic courts
of countries that have universal jurisdiction,
an example of this happened in France in 2014
when it convicted Pascal in the Congo
for his role in the Rwandan genocide.
the bottom line is that actual war crime
convictions aren't all that common.
But that doesn't mean that
the work of human rights groups goes to waste.
the detailed reports and evidence that human rights
groups put together can lead to international pressure.
travel bans on war criminals.
Early reporting on war crimes can also sometimes
help to stop conflicts from escalating.
and it can lead to support
and assistance for victims of war crimes
and make sure that the crimes committed against them
aren't forgotten.