9:25 am: What are war crimes?
“War crimes” are defined as serious violations of international law committed against civilians or combatants during an armed conflict and which entail the individual criminal responsibility of their perpetrators, according to the Office of the High Commissioner of the United Nations for Human Rights (OHCHR).
These crimes correspond to violations of the Geneva Conventions, adopted in the aftermath of the Second World War, in 1949. Their most recent codification is found in Article 8 of the Rome Statute of 1998, founding the International Criminal Court (ICC ).
This article defines over 50 examples of war crimes, including homicide, torture, hostage taking, use of child soldiers, unlawful deportations, intentional attacks on civilians, rape, looting or intentional attacks against humanitarian aid or peacekeeping missions. The use of gas, or generally prohibited weapons that can cause “unnecessary suffering” or “indiscriminate strikes” such as cluster munitions, are also considered war crimes.
War crimes fall under the ICC. This international court, whose headquarters are in The Hague, was created in 2002, precisely to judge this type of crime as well as crimes against humanity, genocide and more recently crimes of aggression.