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Beginning in the middle of the eighteenth century – just as Vattel and Hübner were writing – an important new phase in the law of neutrality was beginning. Belligerents were starting to wage economic war upon one another in a more thoroughgoing fashion than before. Britain was the pioneer, with a policy of disrupting the trade between its
Background to war crimes 1 While the origins of the laws of war stretch back centuries, 2 the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were the first to see multilateral conventions on the law of armed conflict, 3 and the twentieth century was the first to see significant prosecutions for breaches of this law. 4 Following the prosecution of a small number of Germans after the First World War by the Supreme Court of the Reich in Leipzig, 5 the aftermath of the Second World War saw the prosecution by the Allies of
by whose forces they have been captured 5 and their rights and status are regulated in accordance with the 1949 Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war. 6 These rules are generally regarded as part of the customary law of armed conflict, as was pointed out in the Nuremberg Judgment , 7 so that its basic principles are binding even upon a state which has not become a party. In
The Great War of 1914–18 demonstrated, with much vengeance, that the intricate web of compromises between the rights of belligerents and neutrals that had been so carefully crafted by the pre-war codifiers was unequal to the demands of modern-style economic warfare. As Maurice Hankey observed (no doubt with some satisfaction), the Declaration of
Historical background War crimes are violations of the and customs of the law of armed conflict and are punishable whether committed by combatants or civilians, including the nationals of neutral states. 2 Occasionally the term has been used to include acts like espionage 3 or war treason 4
Film is a widely accessible medium for communicating ideas about international law. 1 Popular culture, including film, influences law students, politicians charged with the responsibility of committing troops to war, soldiers, anti-war protesters and the general public on questions such as the legality of the use of force. Most writing at the intersection of international law and film is implicitly aimed at an audience of international lawyers. This may be because the field of film studies, emerging out of sociology, semiotics, psychoanalysis, literary and
Introduction Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) 1 includes in its list of war crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court: (b) … serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely the following
the consequences of his acts at the time he committed them. It has occasionally been argued that Article 77(2) itself fixes the minimum age of criminal responsibility for war crimes at 15. Such a reading of the provision is based on the idea that if a child under 15 is too young to fight he should also be considered to be too young to be held criminally responsible for his actions. Such a reading of
been recognised as far back as the Lieber Code. 10 However, during the Second World War the practice of ‘carpet bombing’, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, brought this proscription into question. 11 The modern prohibition against attacks upon civilians is contained within Article 51(2) of AP I and states, in language similar to that of Article 8(2)(b)(i), that ‘[t]he civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack’. 12 AP I defines ‘civilians’ negatively, by excluding those defined as
Background to non-international armed conflicts The extent of jurisdiction over war crimes committed in non-international armed conflicts in the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was a controversial issue at the Diplomatic Conference in Rome. 1 International humanitarian law relating to internal conflicts is less well developed than that relating to international armed conflicts, although in 1949 Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions established basic rules with respect to those persons not