How is ihl enforced

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Mission Statement. Corporate Governance. Stay Updated. Rights and Permissions. Email Newsletter Sign-up Page. However, judgments may not necessarily be implemented. The US has yet to pay war reparations to Nicaragua, as ordered by the Court; and the opinions are inherently non-binding Pfanner, International criminal law prohibits certain categories of conduct viewed as serious atrocities primarily war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide and seeks to hold accountable individual perpetrators of such conduct individual criminal responsibility.

Grave breaches of IHL rules, as specified in the Geneva Conventions see Provisions under the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols above , constitute war crimes for which individuals can be held directly accountable. It is the primary responsibility of states to prosecute these crimes. If a state is unable or unwilling, then the crimes can be tried by international criminal tribunals established by treaty or by a binding decision of the UN Security Council Posse, International ad hoc tribunals e.

Responsibility is incurred not only by acting, but also by failing to act where there is an obligation to act. This includes military leaders and their superiors who fail to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or suppress the commission of unlawful acts by subordinates, over whom they have effective control Posse, Court decisions are not simply declaratory of the law, but courts themselves are important actors in their development.

The ICTY and ICTR interpreted their mandate as extending to non-international armed conflict, whereas the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols only specified the application of individual criminal responsibility in international armed conflict situations. This extended jurisdiction was subsequently incorporated into the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The ICC also specifies two categories of crimes over which they have jurisdiction.

The first concerns grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions in international armed conflict and serious violations of Article 3 in the case of non-international armed conflict. The second concerns other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international and non-international armed conflicts.

In addition to war crimes, the ICC and the other international and mixed tribunals have jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression. Krieger H ed Inducing compliance with international humanitarian law: lessons from the African Great Lakes region. Kwakwa E The Cairo-Arusha principles on universal jurisdiction in respect of gross human rights offenses: an African perspective.

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