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International Criminal Court Act 2011

SCHEDULE
[Section 2]

PART III
WAR CRIME

“War crime” means –

(a) grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention –
(i) compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power;
(ii) extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly ;
(iii) taking of hostages;
(iv) torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;
(v) unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement;
(vi) wilful killing;
(vii) wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;
(viii) wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of a fair and regular trial;

(b) other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts –
(i) attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives;
(ii) committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(iii) committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, as defined in Article 7, paragraph 2(f) of the Statute, enforced sterilisation, or any other form of sexual violence also constituting a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions;
(iv) compelling the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent’s service before the commencement of the war ;
(v) conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into the national armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities;
(vi) declaring abolished, suspended or inadmissible in a Court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party;
(vii) declaring that no quarter will be given;
(viii) destroying or seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;
(ix) employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices;
(x) employing bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core or is pierced with incisions;
(xi) employing poison or poisoned weapons;
(xii) employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in an annex to the Statute, by an amendment in accordance with the relevant provisions set forth in Articles 121 and 123;
(xiii) 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 ;
(xiv) 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;
(xv) intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives;
(xvi) 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;
(xvii) intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities ;
(xviii) intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental 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 ;
(xix) intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions ;
(xx) killing or wounding a combatant who, having laid down his arms or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion ;
(xxi) killing or wounding treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army;
(xxii) making improper use of a flag of truce, of the flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy or of the United Nations, as well as of the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions, resulting in death or serious personal injury ;
(xxiii) pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault;
(xxiv) subjecting a person who is in the power of an adverse party 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;
(xxv) the transfer, directly or indirectly, 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;
(xxvi) utilising the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations;

(c) in the case of an armed conflict not of an international character, serious violations of Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts committed against persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention or any other cause –
(i) committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(ii) taking hostages;
(iii) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted Court, affording all judicial guarantees which are generally recognised as indispensable;
(iv) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation,
cruel treatment and torture ;

(d) 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) committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, as defined in Article 7, paragraph 2(f) of the Statute, enforced sterilisation, and any other form of sexual violence also constituting a serious violation of Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions;
(ii) conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities;
(iii) declaring that no quarter will be given;
(iv) 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;
(v) 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;
(vi) 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;
(vii) 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;
(viii) intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or
against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities ;
(ix) killing or wounding treacherously a combatant adversary;
(x) 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;
(xi) pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault;
(xii) 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 persons concerned nor carried out in their interest, and which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such persons;.
(xiii) employing poison or poisoned weapons;
(xiv) employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices;
(xv) employing bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core or is pierced with incisions.

Keywords

War crimes



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