WHAT ARE INTERNATIONAL LAWS concerning war?

 by K.R. Kamphoefner

In recent news, you no doubt have seen many references to international law and war crimes. International law is “a collection of rules governing relations between states” (Britanica, 2023). Its sources include international treaties (and many UN documents), international customs (general practices accepted as law), and general principles (originated in national and local laws). Its topics include war and diplomacy, economic relations, and human rights. This article focusses on laws regarding warfare and human rights.

Of the many international agreements, the Geneva Conventions are the ones which establish rules for the conduct of war. There are four articles of the conventions adopted in 1949, with additional protocols added in 1967. They were conceived of just following World War II to try to prevent the WWII atrocities, including genocide, from happening again. The United States, Israel, and Palestine are among the 196 nations which agreed to the Geneva Conventions. Basically, the conventions spell out the difference between what is acceptable in war and what is a war crime. War crimes can be tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The most important idea regarding war is the protection of civilians.

Regarding the current War on Gaza, below are terms you may hear being discussed and what they mean. The terms are arranged in alphabetical order.

KEY DEFINITIONS:

Asylum Seeker: “An asylum-seeker is someone whose request for sanctuary has yet to be processed. Every year, around one million people seek asylum” (UNHCR, 2023b)

Children:  Children are usually defined as under age 18. They are to be protected as all civilians, as well as receive additional protection as vulnerable persons. “Children make up 40 percent of the civilian victims in conflicts and over 50 percent of the refugees and internally displaced persons. Their specific vulnerability puts them at higher risk to be deprived of basic needs such as food, water, and medical attention and otherwise abused” (MSF, 2023). In addition, they have rights because they are children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Save the Children, 2023). Comment: Children are not being protected from current Israeli attacks. As part of its siege, Israel has cut off power, phones, internet, the provision of food, water and basic medical supplies. In addition, many schools have been bombed, while schools cannot be open under the conditions of bombing and ground attacks (OHCHR, 2023b)

 

Civilians: “Rule 5 of the ICRC Study on customary international humanitarian law defines civilians as “persons who are not members of the armed forces. The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians” (MSF, 2023).

 

Collective Punishment: is forbidden under the Geneva Conventions. “Article 33 - Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage, reprisals. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited” (ICRC, 2010).

Ethnic Cleansing: ““… a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.” It came to be widely used in the wars which occurred with the break-up of Yugoslavia (OGP, 2023). Comments: The Israeli government ordered 1.2 million Gazans to evacuate to the south (see also, “Ethnic Cleansing.” Most of the north has been bombed extensively, making the area almost completely ethnically cleansed (Mostly those unable to move, such as the ill, handicapped, the elderly, and hospitalized persons have remained behind).

Forced or Involuntary Displacement (also known as Forced or Involuntary Migration): “The movement of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human‐made disasters” (IOM, 2019). Examples in the current situation include ordering the evacuation of 1.2 million persons living in northern Gaza. Forcing Gazans to move into Egypt also meets this definition.

Genocide: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group (UN General Assembly, 1948).

Comments: The examples a, b, and c., currently apply to Israel’s attacks on Gaza. The fourth example, d, about preventing births, could begin to apply as all the hospitals of Gaza are out of fuel and running out of medicines. Several hospitals have been closed from bombing damage. On 17 October, the UN Office for the Higher Commission for Human Rights said, “An estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, are in desperate need of prenatal and postnatal care” (OHCHR, 2023b).

The current level of siege, preventing water, food, fuel, and medicines from coming into the sealed off Gaza Strip is also illegal. “UN Security Council has repeatedly condemned the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, which is prohibited under international humanitarian and criminal law. The unlawful denial of humanitarian access and depriving civilians of objects indispensable to their survival are also a violation of international humanitarian law” (OHCHR, 2023b).

Internally Displaced:  The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, created in 1998, first of all state that “arbitrary displacement in the first instance is prohibited (Principles 5-7). In addition, the rights of all civilians apply to internally displaced persons (IDPs) who are "persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized border" (OHCHR, 2023c) Currently, The current “number of internally displaced people across the Gaza Strip is estimated at around one million” (OHCHR, 2023b). “Once persons have been displaced, they retain a broad range of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, including the right to basic humanitarian assistance (such as food, medicine, shelter), the right to be protected from physical violence, the right to education, freedom of movement and residence, political rights such as the right to participate in public affairs and the right to participate in economic activities (Principles 10-23). Displaced persons also have the right to assistance from competent authorities in voluntary, dignified, and safe return, resettlement, or local integration, including help in recovering lost property and possessions. When restitution is not possible, the Guiding Principles call for compensation or just reparation (Principles 28-30)”.

Non-refoulement: “a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom” (UNHCR, 2023a). This aims to prevent refugees from being forcibly returned to the country from which they fled.

Occupied territory, an occupation: “The act of taking control of territory belonging either to no one (peaceful occupation) or to a foreign state in the course of a war (belligerent occupation). . . . A belligerent occupant cannot acquire or annex the occupied territory during the course of the war” (Ocford International Press online resource centres, 2016). Occupied territories are Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. Occupation is only intended to be temporary—it is illegal under international law to use war to seize lands. An occupying power is obligated to respect the property rights of the occupied people, provide them with protection, food, water, medicines and other humanitarian needs, and to not do anything to harm their welfare (Medicins san Frontieres, 2023)

Protection: Right to Protection (R2P) This is the basic right of IDPs, refugees, and stateless , to be protection in the country to which they have fled (Relief Web, 2023). In addition, all children have the right to be protected from all forms of violence, under the Universal Declaration of the Rights of a Child (Save the Children, 2023). Also see: non-refoulement.

Refugee: “Article 1 of the 1951 Convention defines a refugee as someone who ‘owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of [their] nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail [themself] of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of [their] former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it’ (UNHCR, 2023a).

KEY DOCUMENTS OF INTERNATIONALW INCLUDE:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 2023)

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their additional protocols (ICRC, 2010)

The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, 1979 (OHCHR, 1966)

The 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol (UNHCR, 2023a)

Related to Israel/ Palestine, these documents are also part of international law:

·         The UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 which "reaffirms also the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return” (United Nations, 1974), and

·         The UN Security Council Resolution 242, which reaffirms that territory may not be acquired by war, as well as the necessity for "achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem" (UN Security Council, 1967).

If you want to learn more, the references link to the relevant documents. If you want additional terms added, send me a message.

References

Beinin, J. &. (2014, February). Palestine, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. Retrieved from Middle East Research and information Project (MERIP): https://merip.org/palestine-israel-primer/

Britanica. (2023). The nature and development of International law. Retrieved from Encyclopedia Britanica: Many friends have worked in Israel, Palestine, and Gaza. How can you post only "feel good" stuff on FB? You're being silent what's most important, GENOCIDE.

ICRC. (2010, February 10). The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols. Retrieved from International Committee of the Red Cross: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions/overview-geneva-conventions.htm

IOM. (2019). No. 34 International Migration Law: Glossary on Migration. Retrieved from UN International Office of Migration: https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/iml_34_glossary.pdf

Medicins san Frontieres. (2023). Occupied Territory. Retrieved from The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law: https://guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/article/3/occupied-territory/

MSF. (2023). The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law. Retrieved from Medecins san Frontieres: https://guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/article/3/civilians/

Ocford International Press online resource centres. (2016). Selected international law terms. Retrieved from global.oup.com: https://global.oup.com/uk/orc/law/intl/international_qanda/resources/selected/

OGP. (2023). Ethnic Cleansing. Retrieved from UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/ethnic-cleansing.shtml

OHCHR. (1966, December 16). International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, UN Resolution 2200A. Retrieved from UN Office of the Higher Commission of Human RIghts: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights

OHCHR. (2023b, October 17). Gaza: UN experts decry bombing of hospitals and schools as crimes against humanity, call for prevention of genocide. Retrieved from UN Office for the Higher the Commission of Human Rights: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/gaza-un-experts-decry-bombing-hospitals-and-schools-crimes-against-humanity

OHCHR. (2023c). About internally displaced persons: Special rapporteur of the human rights of internally displaced persons. Retrieved from Office for the Higher Commission of Human Rights: https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-internally-displaced-persons/about-internally-displaced-persons

Relief Web. (2023). Right to Protection. Retrieved from ReliefWeb.int: https://reliefweb.int/organization/r2p

Save the Children. (2023). UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 1969. Retrieved from STC: https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/convention-text-childrens-version

UN General Assembly. (1948, December 4). Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Retrieved from United Nations: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf

UN Security Council. (1967). Resolution 242 (1967). Retrieved from peacemaker.un.org: https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/SCRes242%281967%29.pdf

UNHCR. (2023a). The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocal. Retrieved from United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees: https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/1951-refugee-convention

UNHCR. (2023b). Asylum seekers. Retrieved from United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees: https://www.unhcr.org/asylum-seekers

UNICEF. (2023). The Convention on the Rights of the Child: The children’s version . Retrieved from United Nations Children's Fund: https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/convention-text-childrens-version

United Nations. (1974, November 22). UN General Assembly Resolution 3236. Retrieved from United Nations: https://www.un.org/unispal/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ARES3236XXIX.pdf

United Nations. (2023). Universal declaration of human rights. Retrieved from un.org: International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

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