definition of non-international armed conflict

Unfortunately, a number of States have not adopted the necessary legislation and many belligerents allow – or even order – their organs to violate IHL, with complete impunity. For this reason, too, national legislation is necessary. Moreover, it not only permits, it even requires all States to prosecute war criminals, regardless of their nationality, the nationality of the victim, and where the crime was committed. While normally a State has criminal jurisdiction only over acts committed on its territory or by its nationals, IHL confers universal jurisdiction over grave breaches on all States. IHL moreover contains provisions on the legal qualification of an individual’s failure to act and on group criminality, such as the responsibility of commanders. IHL requires States to enact legislation to punish such grave breaches, to search for persons who have allegedly committed such crimes, and to bring them before their own courts or to extradite them to another State for prosecution. The concept of war crimes includes – but is not limited to – the violations listed and defined in the Conventions and Protocol I as grave breaches.Īll war grave breaches are war crimesīut not all war crimes are grave breaches. Certain violations, called war crimes, are criminalized by IHL. IHL obliges States to suppress all its violations.

IHL was one of the first branches of international law to contain rules of international criminal law. There is, however, the growing branch of international criminal law, which consists of rules of international law specifically criminalizing certain individual behaviour and obliging States to criminally repress such behaviour. Under its traditional structure, international law prescribes certain rules of conduct for States, and it is up to every State to decide on practical measures or penal or administrative legislation to ensure that individuals whose behaviour is attributable to it, or under some primary rules even all individuals under its jurisdiction, comply with those rules – indeed, ultimately only human beings can violate or respect rules. Click on 'CHAPTER BIBLIOGRAPHY' or 'SPECIFIC BIBLIOGRAPHY' to see content

Definition of non-international armed conflict