To understand the current geopolitical context, it is important to understand the role of international humanitarian law, the organizations that must monitor it and the body that can investigate to enforce its rules.
Last month, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan said: “deep concern about a possible Israeli ground offensive in Rafah and Gaza“warning that “Anyone who violates international law will be held accountable“. The prosecutor further stated that “all wars have rules and the laws applicable to armed conflicts cannot be interpreted in a way that would render them void or meaningless“.
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The prosecutor directly refers to international humanitarian law (IHL), the set of rules which aim to limit the effects of armed conflicts, to regulate the conduct of hostilities and to protect victims civilians, wounded, sick, prisoners of war, internees and shipwrecked. International humanitarian law therefore applies to any type of international or non-international armed conflict, regardless of the legitimacy and reasons for the use of force.
The fundamental principles of international humanitarian law
International humanitarian law constitutes a complex system of rules based on certain fundamental principles closely linked to the way in which the parties involved must conduct the conflict. Among these are the principle of humanity, the principle of distinction, the principle of proportionality and military necessity, the precautionary principle and finally the principle of limiting unnecessary losses and unnecessary suffering. They are binding in all circumstances and no exemptions can be authorized.
The standards are brought together in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the two Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005.. Almost all states in the world have signed the four Conventions. Between the years 1990 and 2008, international treaties were added regarding the prohibition or limitation of the use of various types of weapons, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention, the International Convention on Cluster Bombs and Mines antipersonnel.
The Committee of the International Red Cross
The Committee of the International Red Cross is the body responsible for ensuring compliance with the Geneva Conventions during the conflict.. The Swiss organization has an international mandate. Its humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of people in conflict zones and to prevent human suffering. The Committee of the International Red Cross (ICRC) promotes and disseminates international humanitarian law. The conflicts in which it is currently involved are in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Sahel, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and finally in Syria and Yemen.
Since February 24, 2022, the ICRC has deployed around 900 people across Ukraine to help the community. In total, the Red Cross Movement has provided humanitarian assistance to more than 11.6 million people. Thousands of families have received information about their detained or missing loved ones thanks to cooperation between the ICRC Agency and the Russian authorities. The Red Cross Movement visited 2,400 prisoners of war on both sides.
The court that investigates violations of IHL
The International Criminal Court (ICC) it is the first permanent court with universal jurisdiction to prosecute individuals accused of committing serious crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes against peace.
It represents the culmination of a long journey that began with the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946. In the 1990s, the journey resumed with the establishment of the International Criminal Court in the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court in Rwanda, in the United Nations initiative. United Security Council. The effectiveness of these latest initiatives led to the approval in 1998 of the Rome Statute, the founding act of the International Criminal Court, subsequently ratified by 123 countries and entered into force on July 1, 2002.
The ICC exercises its functions in the territory of any State Party (which has ratified the Rome Statute). Furthermore, Article 12 of the Statute provides for the hypothesis according to which the Court can exercise its jurisdictional power even with regard to a State which is not a party to it, if it concerns crimes committed on territory of a State which accepted its jurisdiction with a one-off declaration from the Court as in the case of Ukraine and the Palestinian National Authority in 2009
International Criminal Court: how it is activated
The activation of the intervention of the International Criminal Court belongs to an Attorney General, a State Party or the United Nations Security Council, which can refer the matter to the Court when it considers that the conditions for its intervention are met. Competence can only be exercised in addition to that of the States.if they do not have the ability or willingness to use it.
This makes the Court both a means of combating the immobility of States in the face of international crimes and a mechanism to encourage them to act promptly in the exercise of their criminal functions. This is what is happening today in Ukraine with the investigation that led to the issuance of an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the recent indictment of two Russian military commanders for war crimes presumed.
International humanitarian law, the Committee of the International Red Cross and the action of the International Criminal Court are therefore the fundamental tools in the fight against impunity and the dissemination and respect of international law and human rights. man.
