While Russia continues its military operation in Ukraine, and as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza enters its second month, the world is reeling from large-scale warfare. As protests continue to erupt around the world, cries for a ceasefire and an end to the killing grow louder.

War crimes have been committed by both Israel and Hamas, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Wednesday, November 9. “I call – as a matter of urgency - for the parties now to agree a ceasefire.”

The Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas killed 1,400 people, and 240 hostages were taken.  Israeli bombardments have now killed more than 10,500 Palestinians in Gaza, including over 4,300 children.

Amid the onslaught of shocking violence, what exactly constitutes a war crime, and how will these crimes be prosecuted?

A war crime is a violation of the international laws of war, which were codified in several multilateral treaties like the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions.  Individuals are prosecuted for war crimes in the International  Criminal Court (ICC), using the parameters set in its Rome Statute.

A person with “a role in organizing, coordinating or planning the military actions of the military group, in addition to financing, training and equipping the group or providing operational support to it,” can be found guilty of a war crime in the ICC, according to Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.

Some examples of war crimes as defined in the ICC’s Rome Statute:

-Willful killing

-Torture or inhuman treatment

-Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health

-Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity

-Unlawful deportation or transfer

-Taking of hostages

-Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population

-Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects which are not military objectives

-Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations

-Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians 

-Attacking or bombarding, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives

-Rape

-The transfer by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory

-Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies

The ICC was created to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

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