Unit 5: Enforcement of International Humanitarian Law
5.1 Grave Breaches of Geneva Conventions and War Crimes
The grave breaches regime (the GCs’ own machinery): the enumerated acts (the wilful killing, the torture, the inhuman treatment, the wilfully causing great suffering, the deportation, the hostage-taking, the unjust trial) — the IAC’s catalogue; the universal jurisdiction’s duty: the states must search-and-prosecute (the aut dedere aut judicare obligation). The war crimes’ wider concept: the grave breaches + the other serious violations (the Hague-and-custom’s catalogue: the targeting of civilians, the perfidious killing, the pillage, the sexual crimes, the child soldiers) — the Rome Statute’s codification (the Article 8 list: the IAC-and-NIAC’s menus); the NIAC’s individual accountability despite the treaty’s silence (the Tadic case’s contribution — the custom’s recognition).
5.2 Individual Responsibility and Command Responsibility
The individual responsibility (Nuremberg’s principle): the person responsible, not the abstract state (the crimes’ individual character — the defences’ bars: the superior orders’ no-defence (the moral choice’s exception), the official capacity’s irrelevance, the statute-of-limitations’ debates); the modes: the commission, the ordering, the aiding, the instigating; the joint criminal enterprise’s doctrine (the tribunals’ mode — the controversies).
The command responsibility: the superior’s answer for the subordinates’ crimes (the Hague’s-and-tribunals’ line): the three elements (the effective control, the knowledge-or-had-reason-to-know, the failure-to-prevent-or-punish) — the Yamashita case’s origin; the civilian superiors’ extension (the Rome Statute); the doctrine’s justice (the responsibility’s diffusion debate — the “innocent commander” faces).
5.3 International and National Mechanisms for Enforcing IHL
The international faces: the Protecting Powers (the GCs’ original design — the parties’ neutral intermediaries); the ICRC (the guardian: the visits, the confidential dialogue, the dissemination); the Security Council’s enforcement (the Chapter VII route — the tribunals’ creation line); the universal jurisdiction’s practice (the Pinochet case’s line; the domestic prosecutions’ era — the Belgian-and-German cases).
The national faces (the primary duty):
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