B. Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflicts
As noted previously, these provisions are derived largely from the Hague law. The list is quite extensive, and largely consists of rules of warfare recognized since the turn of the century or before, but also takes into account more recent developments in international humanitarian law. It enumerates as crimes such acts as:

• targeting civilians;
  
• targeting buildings devoted to art or science;
  
• killing combatants who have laid down their arms and surrendered;
  
• declaring that no quarter will be given;
  
• pillaging;
  
• using a flag of truce or other flag or insignia falsely, resulting in death or serious injury;
  
• rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, enforced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, and other forms of sexual violence;
  
• using civilians or other protected persons to protect specific locations from military attack;
  
• intentional starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.

Proposals have been made to include the following acts: the transfer by an occupying power of civilians into or out of certain territories; the use of particular weapons, such as poison or poisoned weapons, gas weapons, chemical weapons and bacteriological weapons; the use of anti-personnel mines, blinding laser weapons and nuclear weapons; and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment", or, more specifically, rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, enforced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, and any other form of sexual violence also constituting a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

C. In the case of an armed conflict not of an international character, serious violations of article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions
Article 3 which is common to all four Geneva Conventions applies specifically to armed conflicts not of an international character. It sets out protection for those not taking an active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat (out of the combat) by sickness, wounds, detention or any other cause. It enumerates four categories of prohibited acts:

• violence, murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
  
• outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
  
• the taking of hostages;
  
• the passing of sentences and carrying out of executions without due process.

D. Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts not of an international character
This category is largely derived from the second Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which specifically protects victims of non-international conflicts. In large part, this section of the draft statute resembles the text regarding serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflict in section B above, but applies to non-international conflict. It would prohibit acts such as:

• attacks directed against civilian populations, or non-combatants, or against buildings or other targets bearing the emblem of the Geneva Conventions;
  
• attacks directed against buildings dedicated to art or science, or monuments;
  
• pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault;
  
• committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
  
• rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, enforced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, and other forms of sexual violence also constituting a serious violation of article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions;
  
• using children under the age of 15 in armed forces;
  
• displacing the civilian population for reasons related to the conflict;
  
• physical mutilation or medical or scientific experiments of persons in the power of another party to the conflict;
  
• killing or wounding treacherously an adversary;
  
• declaring that no quarter will be given;
  
• destroying or seizing property when not necessary.

Proposals have been made to include provisions prohibiting using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, intentionally launching an attack knowing that such an attack would cause loss of life or injury to civilians, and slavery and the trade slave.

In the draft statute, extermination is defined as including the infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.

Torture may be defined as it is in the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of 10 December 1984, which requires that the acts be committed by a public official. Or torture may be defined as the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, but excluding pain and suffering arising only from lawful sanctions.

The increasing number of forced disappearances of persons throughout the world prompted the United Nations General Assembly to adopt, in 1992, the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Under the Declaration, the term enforced disappearance also covers situations when persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will by or with the approval of a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that abduction has taken place and the denial of information on the fate of those abducted, thereby placing them outside the protection of the law.

Crimes involving the illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances
Some countries are interested in including the illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, for particularly serious offences. The consequences of such drug trafficking for the world population are quite serious. The proposed definition of these crimes contained in the draft statute is largely drawn from the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 19 December 1988.

These crimes will be further discussed at the Rome Conference.

For more information, please contact:
Development and Human Rights Section
Department of Public Information
Room S-1040
United Nations
New York, NY 10017
Tel.: (212) 963-0499 or 963-1786
Fax: (212) 963-1186
E-mail: mcguffie@un.org or vasic@un.org