"A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action..."
Study of war crimes committed during times of conflict, including atrocities committed against civilians, prisoners of war, and other non-combatants.
International Humanitarian Law (IHL): The body of law that governs the conduct of armed conflicts, including the treatment of civilians, prisoners of war, and other non-combatants.
The Hague Conventions: A series of international treaties adopted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that regulate the conduct of warfare, including the treatment of prisoners of war, the protection of civilians, and the use of certain weapons.
The Geneva Conventions: A series of four international treaties adopted in the mid-20th century that establish the standards for the treatment of prisoners of war, the wounded, and civilians in armed conflict.
The Nuremberg Trials: A series of military tribunals held in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1945-1946 to prosecute prominent leaders of the Third Reich for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other offenses.
The Tokyo Trials: A series of military tribunals held in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946-1948 to prosecute high-ranking Japanese military and political leaders for war crimes, crimes against peace, and other offenses.
The International Military Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY): A tribunal established in 1993 by the United Nations to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR): A tribunal established in 1994 by the United Nations to prosecute individuals responsible for the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
The International Criminal Court (ICC): A permanent international court established in 2002 to prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, where national courts are unable or unwilling to do so.
War Crimes: Grave breaches of the laws and customs of war, such as murder, torture, enslavement, rape, and other forms of sexual violence, and the intentional targeting of civilians or civilian objects.
Crimes against Humanity: Widespread or systematic attacks against civilian populations, including murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts.
Genocide: Acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, including killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, or deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction.
Command Responsibility: The legal principle that holds military and political leaders responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed by their subordinates if they knew or should have known about the crimes and failed to take reasonable measures to prevent or punish them.
Universal Jurisdiction: The principle that allows nations to prosecute individuals for crimes committed abroad, regardless of the nationality of the accused or the victim, or where the crime was committed.
Crimes against humanity: This includes acts such as murder, enslavement, forced displacement, persecution, and other inhumane acts committed against a civilian population during war.
War crimes: These include violations of the laws and customs of war, such as intentionally targeting civilians or using prohibited weapons.
Genocide: The intentional and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Aggression: Unlawful use of force by a state against another state.
Torture: Deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering upon a person in custody or under the control of the accused.
Crimes against peace: These include planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of these acts.
"...such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, unnecessarily destroying civilian property..."
"...deception by perfidy..."
"...wartime sexual violence..."
"...pillaging..."
"...the conscription of children in the military..."
"...flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity."
"The formal concept of war crimes emerged from the codification of the customary international law that applied to warfare between sovereign states..."
"...such as the Lieber Code (1863) of the Union Army in the American Civil War and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 for international war."
"In the aftermath of the Second World War, the war-crime trials of the leaders of the Axis powers established the Nuremberg principles of law..."
"...such that international criminal law defines what is a war crime."
"In 1949, the Geneva Conventions legally defined new war crimes..."
"...and established that states could exercise universal jurisdiction over war criminals."
"...international courts extrapolated and defined additional categories of war crimes..."
"...applicable to a civil war."
"...individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action..."
"...a violation of the laws of war..."
"...such as intentionally killing civilians..."
"...individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action..."
"In the late 20th century and early 21st century, international courts extrapolated and defined additional categories of war crimes..."