1. What is a War Crime?
- Author:
- Oona A. Hathaway, Paul Strauch, Beatrice Walton, and Zoe Weinberg
- Publication Date:
- 04-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- Here we propose a potential solution to the challenges surrounding the definition of war crimes we identified. In an effort to eliminate the confusion that results from over-reliance on prior criminalization, we distill the concept of war crimes down to its essence. A better approach, we argue here and in a forthcoming article, is to define war crimes as consisting of two key elements: (1) a breach of international humanitarian law (IHL) that is (2) “serious.” This approach is not only more jurisprudentially grounded, but it also has several benefits in the context of ongoing prosecutions of Syrian war criminals in Europe.
- Topic:
- Genocide, International Law, War Crimes, and Humanitarian Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus