ABSTRACT
Humanitarian crimes are crimes that are so heinous that they shock the human conscience. Persons are held accountable for humanitarian crimes, whereas states are held accountable for human rights violations. International humanitarian law has its origins in treaties relevant in wartime that were crafted in 1863 in Geneva, Switzerland, after the battle of Solferino in 1859. The International Criminal Court (ICC) conducts a trial against an individual accused of a humanitarian crime, but a treaty body reviews a state for its compliance with a human rights treaty. Torture is defined as a war crime under the Rome Statute that implements the ICC. The Rome Treaty sets up an international court to hear cases that involve three types of crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The earliest international precedents for humanitarian crimes are the Nuremburg trials. These trials were international, although only incompletely so, carried out by the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union.
