individual act constituting a serious violation of the laws of war From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A war crime is a crime that breaks international laws of war. These laws say what is allowed during war and what is not. Today, these international laws are the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Convention.
To be a war crime, a crime must be part of a plan or has to be committed against protected persons and must be committed during a war.[1]
In international armed conflicts, only prisoners of war, wounded and sick enemy fighters, shipwrecked survivors, and enemy civilians are protected persons. Nationals under their own authority as well as neutral civilians living in a belligerent state and allied citizens as long their states maintain diplomatic relations with a belligerent power are not protected persons under the law of war in the same conflicts.[2]
In non-international armed conflicts, persons not taking part in hostilities are protected regardless of nationality.[2]
The idea of what a "war crime" is has changed over time. For example, in the 1940s, the strategic bombing during World War II was not a war crime. Now it is.
In 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was created. Its goal is to look into and, if possible, punish people for war crimes. When the ICC was created, it came up with a longer list of war crimes. Its list was the first to include types of sexual abuse like forcing women into sexual slavery.[3]pp. 8–10
Here are some examples of crimes that the ICC lists as war crimes.[3]
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These are war crimes whether they are committed against enemy soldiers or protected civilians or neutral persons.[3][4]
These are war crimes whether they are committed against enemy soldiers or protected civilians or neutral persons.[3]
War crimes against protected civilians include:[3]
War crimes against enemy soldiers include:[3]
War crimes against neutral persons include:[4]
This table shows some examples of war crimes.
| WAR | PERPETRATOR | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Incident | Type of war crimes | Ordered or Committed By | Notes | |
| World War I (1914-1918) | All major belligerents | |||
| Chemical weapons in World War I | Use of chemical weapons | Ordered by all major belligerents | Throughout World War I, all major belligerents employed chemical weapons in combat in violation of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in international conflicts. | |
| Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) | Empire of Japan | |||
| Nanjing Massacre | Mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war; torture; rape; robbery; setting buildings on fire[5] | Committed by the Imperial Japanese Army[5] | For six weeks after invading and taking over Nanjing, China, Japanese soldiers committed war crimes. About 200,000 people died or were killed.[6] | |
| World War II (1939-1945) | Nazi Germany | |||
| Invasion of Poland | Mass murder of civilians, including hospital patients; attacking refugees and civilian buildings | Committed by the German Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) | The Nazis killed about 150,000–200,000 Polish civilians,[7] including over 20,000 in mass executions by mobile death squads, and about 6,000 hospital patients.[8] | |
| World War II (1939-1945) | Empire of Japan | |||
| Attack on Pearl Harbor | Attacking neutral territory and murder of neutral persons | Committed by the Imperial Japanese Navy | On December 7, 1941, Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft and submarines attacked a United States naval base at Pearl Harbor without a state of war and without explicit warning, killing 2,403 people, destroying 188 U.S. aircraft, and sinking eight battleships.[9][10] | |
| World War II (1939-1945) | United States | |||
| Biscari massacre | Murder of prisoners of war | Sergeant Horace T. West; Captain John T. Compton[11] | During the Allied invasion of Sicily, American soldiers killed 76 Italian and German prisoners of war. West was found guilty in an American court martial; Compton was found not guilty.[11] | |
| Vietnam War (1955-1975) | North Vietnam | |||
| Massacre at Huế | Mass murder, beatings, and torture of civilians | Viet Cong and People's Army of Vietnam | The Battle of Huế began on 31 January 1968, and lasted a total of 26 days. During the months and years that followed, dozens of mass graves were discovered in and around Huế. Victims included men, women, children, and infants killed under North Vietnamese occupation of Huế, South Vietnam.[12] The estimated death toll was between 2,800 and 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war,[13] or 5–10% of the total population of Huế.[14] Victims were found bound, tortured, and sometimes buried alive. Many victims were also clubbed to death.[15][16][17] | |
| The Troubles (1968-1998) | United Kingdom | |||
| Actions in Northern Ireland | Torture; killing suspects (including a civilian) without trying to arrest them first | Members of the British Army | In the 1970s, members of the British Army commonly used torture, including waterboarding, on prisoners in Northern Ireland.[18][19][20][21][22] They also started a "shoot to kill" policy, where they would shoot and kill suspects without trying to arrest them first. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that this was illegal.[23] | |
| Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) | Iraq | |||
| Iraqi chemical attacks against Iran | Use of chemical weapons | Ordered by Saddam Hussein;[24] led by Alī Ḥassan al-Majīd ("Chemical Ali")[25] | Throughout the 1980s, Iraq used poison gases to attack Iran.[25][26] A Dutch war crimes tribunal also found a Dutch businessman guilty for selling Iraq chemical weapons.[27] | |
| War in Uganda (1985 – today) | Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) | |||
| Many events | Mass murder; kidnapping; forcing children to be soldiers and sex slaves; attacking civilians | Led by Joseph Kony[28] | The LRA is a rebel group in Uganda, started in 1987. Since 1987, the LRA has forced about 60,000 – 100,000 children to be soldiers, and about 2 million people in central Africa had to leave their homes.[29] In 2002, Kony ordered the LRA to start attacking civilians.[28] The ICC has indicted Kony for 21 different war crimes. The Court has also indicted four other LRA leaders.[28] | |
| War in Darfur (2003 – today) | Sudan | |||
| Many events | Mass murder of civilians; destroying civilian villages; rape; making civilians leave home; looting | Led by Omar al-Bashir; committed by Sudanese military, police, and militia[30][31] | The al-Bashir government has committed many crimes against people in Darfur who are not of the Arab, Muslim majority.[30] In 2014, the United Nations estimated that 300,000 had been killed and more than 1.5 million had been forced to leave their homes.[30] The ICC has indicted al-Bashir and five other leaders with war crimes.[31] | |
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