ABSTRACT
International humanitarian law provides an extensive legal framework to ensure the protection of certain categories of individuals and property during armed conflict. However, as history has shown, there will be occasions when the protections afforded by international humanitarian law are violated, sometimes intentionally, sometimes as the result of carelessness, and sometimes as the result of genuine accident. In some circumstances, where the parties to armed conflicts fail in their obligations, this can have particularly serious consequences for the people, places, and objects this body of law is intended to protect. These violations, upon reaching a particular threshold, will qualify as war crimes, and their repression is a core component of international humanitarian law enforcement. Without the ability to hold those responsible for war crimes criminally accountable, the protection and guarantees that this body of law provides will be undermined. This chapter provides an overview of the constitutive elements of war crimes, noting the distinction between grave breaches and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. It then considers under what circumstances an individual can be held criminally responsible for war crimes.
