LAW 316 Lecture Notes - Geneva Conventions, Collateral Damage, Command Responsibility
Document Summary
Collateral damage to civilians not a war crime if force was not disproportionate to the military objective. Hospital, religious and cultural structures are ordinarily unlawful targets. Grave breaches only apply to international armed conflict. All states have a duty to prosecute or extradite offenders. States have universal jurisdiction to prosecute other violations of the geneva conventions but the duty to prosecute is confined to grave breaches. Convention, genocide means may of the folioing acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Crime against humanity means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed again any civilian population. There is not duty to prosecute or extradite a perpetrator of a crime against humanity unless the international criminal court has issued an arrest warrant, or indicts.
