'Other serious violations of the laws and customs - NIAC' in document 'Switzerland - Criminal Code'

Jump to:

RELEVANT SECTIONS OF THE IMPLEMENTING LEGISLATION

Book Two : Specific Provisions

Title Twelveter : War Crimes

Art. 264d

1 The penalty is a custodial sentence of not less than three years for any person who in connection with an armed conflict directs an attack :

a. against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities ;
b. against personnel, installations, material or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations of 26 June 1945, as long as they are entitled to the protection of international humanitarian law ;
c. against civilian objects, undefended settlements or buildings or demilitarised zones that are not military objectives ;
d. against medical units, material or vehicles using a distinctive emblem under international humanitarian law or whose protected character is recognisable even without a distinctive emblem, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected ;
e. against cultural property or persons entrusted with its protection or vehicles for its transport, against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, provided they are protected by international humanitarian law.

Book Two : Specific Provisions

Title Twelveter : War Crimes

Art. 264e

1 The penalty is a custodial sentence of not less than three years for any person who, in connection with an armed conflict :

a. causes severe pain or suffering or serious injury or danger, whether physical or mental, to a person protected by international humanitarian law by subjecting that person to a medical procedure that is not justified by the state of his or her health and which does comply with generally recognised medical principles ;
b. rapes a person of the female gender protected by international humanitarian law or, after she has been forcibly made pregnant, confines her unlawfully with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of a population, forces a person to tolerate a sexual act of comparable severity or forces a person protected by international humanitarian law into prostitution or to be sterilised ;
c. subjects a person protected by international humanitarian law to especially humiliating and degrading treatment.

Book Two : Specific Provisions

Title Twelveter : War Crimes

Art. 264f

1 The penalty is a custodial sentence of not less than three years for any person who enlists a child under the age of fifteen into armed forces or groups or recruiting them for this purpose or using them to participate in armed conflicts.

Book Two : Specific Provisions

Title Twelveter : War Crimes

Art. 264g

1 The penalty is a custodial sentence of not less than three years for any person who, in connection with an armed conflict :

a. launches an attack although he knows or must assume that such an attack will cause loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated ;

Book Two : Specific Provisions

Title Twelveter : War Crimes

Art. 264g

1 The penalty is a custodial sentence of not less than three years for any person who, in connection with an armed conflict :

c. as a method of warfare, pillages or otherwise unlawfully appropriates property or destroys or seizes enemy property in a way not imperatively demanded by the necessities of war, deprives civilians of objects indispensable to their survival or impedes relief supplies ;
d. kills or wounds an enemy combatant treacherously or after he or she has laid down his or her arms or no longer has a means of defence ;

Book Two : Specific Provisions

Title Twelveter : War Crimes

Art. 264g

1 The penalty is a custodial sentence of not less than three years for any person who, in connection with an armed conflict :

f. as the commander orders that no quarter be given or threatens the enemy that no quarter will be given ;

Book Two : Specific Provisions

Title Twelveter : War Crimes

Art. 264g

1 The penalty is a custodial sentence of not less than three years for any person who, in connection with an armed conflict :

h. as a member of an occupying power, transfers parts of its own civilian population into the territory it is occupying or deports all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside that territory.

RELEVANT ROME STATUTE PROVISIONS

Article 8
War crimes
2. For the purpose of this Statute, "war crimes" means:
(e) Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts not of an international character, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:
(i) Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;
(ii) Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law;
(iii) 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, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict;
(iv) Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives;
(v) Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault;
(vi) Committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, as defined in article 7, paragraph 2 (f), enforced sterilization, and any other form of sexual violence also constituting a serious violation of article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions;
(vii) Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities;
(viii) Ordering the displacement of the civilian population for reasons related to the conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand;
(ix) Killing or wounding treacherously a combatant adversary;
(x) Declaring that no quarter will be given;
(xi) Subjecting persons who are in the power of another party to the conflict to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his or her interest, and which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons;
(xii) Destroying or seizing the property of an adversary unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of the conflict