Answers: War Crimes and International Law
The International Court of Justice in its interim ruling on Friday ordered Israel to prevent its forces from carrying out genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza but did not call for a ceasefire. However, it could take years for the court to rule on South Africa’s allegations that Israel has committed genocide.
As Israel continues to attack Gaza, this quiz takes in international humanitarian law, the principle of universal jurisdiction and the roles of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
Answers
1) South Africa, the country that filed the genocide case against Israel is not involved in the conflict in Gaza. But there is a precedent from 2019 when Gambia filed a genocide case at the International Court of Justice against another country in which a minority group has been systematically targeted. Which country?
Myanmar. The Gambia accused Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya minority. Myanmar’s then civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi defended the military in The Hague in December 2019. The International Court of Justice rejected Myanmar’s preliminary objections to the case in July 2022.
2) Which word coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin was first used in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe?
Genocide. More here, here and here. In December 1948, the Genocide Convention was the first human rights treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. More here and here.
3) The U.S. Senate had refused to ratify the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention for decades. It took an angry response by Jewish American groups against a visit by President Ronald Reagan to a particular location in Bitburg, West Germany for Washington to change course. The backlash forced the Reagan administration to endorse ratification and the process was completed in 1988. Where did Reagan visit in Bitburg?
President Ronald Reagan visited a German war cemetery in Bitburg that included the graves of Nazi members of the Waffen-SS. More here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
4) Who formally attained membership of the International Criminal Court on April 1, 2015?
Palestine. More here, here and here. Paving the way for ICC membership was a vote by the UN General Assembly in 2012 that recognised Palestine as a non-member observer state. More here, here and here.
5) What was the ruling by the International Criminal Court on February 5, 2021 that angered Israel? (Israel is not a member of the ICC)
The ICC ruled it has jurisdiction over serious crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, all occupied by Israel since 1967). The United Nations on the legal status of the West Bank and Gaza here, here and here.
6) International humanitarian law bars an attack that may be expected to cause incidental death or injury to civilians or the destruction of civilian objects that would be excessive or disproportionate compared to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. What is this rule known as?
Proportionality. More here and here.
7) Article 79 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions states that ‘——— in war zones must be treated as civilians and protected as such, provided they play no part in the hostilities.’ Who?
Journalists. More here. The Committee to Protect Journalists has called the Israel-Gaza war the deadliest in modern history for journalists. More here, here, here and here.
8) The principle of universal jurisdiction allows states to prosecute someone for an offence irrespective of where it was committed and the nationality of the accused and the victim, even if the crime is not linked to the prosecuting state. Against which group of people was this principle first applied centuries ago?
Pirates. More here.
9) The trials in Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II are widely considered to be the starting point for the modern form of universal jurisdiction. More than a decade after those trials, this country cited this principle to convict a person for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was executed in 1962. Who and which country executed him?
Adolf Eichmann and Israel. Eichmann was among the major Nazi organisers of the Holocaust, planning and managing the mass deportation of Jews to death camps. More here, here, here and here. More on the application of universal jurisdiction in the Israeli Supreme Court’s conviction of Eichmann here and here.
10) Whose arrest in the UK in 1998 was a turning point in using the principle of universal jurisdiction against a former leader of a country? He was eventually allowed to leave after a year and a half on grounds of ill health.
General Augusto Pinochet of Chile. More here and here. I have explored Pinochet and his controversial legacy in my earlier quiz on the ramifications of the 1973 coup in Chile.
11) After seizing power in 1982, Hissene Habre was the dictator in control of Chad until 1990. Known as ‘Africa’s Pinochet’, his regime was notorious for political killings, systematic torture and arbitrary arrests. In 2016, Habre was convicted of crimes against humanity, summary execution and torture. Which country was Habre based in and what was unprecedented about the trial? (Hint: universal jurisdiction was applied)
Hissene Habre was tried and convicted in Senegal. It was the first time courts of one country prosecuted the former leader of another for human rights crimes.
Senegal amended its laws to incorporate universal jurisdiction. The Extraordinary African Chambers was created in Senegal’s court system with the African Union’s support.
12) This month the trial of a former interior minister, Ousman Sonko, began in a Swiss federal court. Switzerland allows ‘universal jurisdiction’ trials of alleged offenders of the most serious crimes, whether they are citizens or foreigners, as long as they are on Swiss soil. Which country does Ousman Sonko belong to?
Gambia. Ousman Sonko was interior minister under Yahya Jammeh, who was president from 1996 to 2017. Jammeh tried to stay in power despite losing presidential elections in 2016 to Adama Barrow, but was forced to leave the country after the regional body Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) intervened. Jammeh is accused of perpetrating multiple abuses, including murder, torture and sexual violence, during his time in office. More here and here. More about Ousman Sonko’s trial in Switzerland here, here, here and here.
13) This country’s government was criticised by its courts for not detaining Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir during his visit there for an African Union summit in 2015. It is a member of the International Criminal Court, which had issued an arrest warrant against Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur. In 2023 this country’s leadership mooted leaving the ICC ahead of a likely visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin, also facing an arrest warrant (the country didn’t leave the ICC and Putin didn’t visit). Which country?
South Africa. More on Omar Al Bashir’s 2015 trip to South Africa here, here and here. In April 2023 South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said the governing African National Congress wanted the country to leave the ICC only to backtrack. South Africa hosted the BRICS summit in August 2023 and invited Russian president Vladimir Putin, who was issued an arrest warrant by the ICC in March over the deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia. Putin did not attend the summit.
14) Which country joined the International Criminal Court in October 2023, a move that angered traditional ally Russia? This followed a major setback a month earlier.
Armenia. More here, here, here and here. Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave inside its territory from ethnic Armenian fighters in a lightning offensive in September 2023. Armenia had criticised a Russian peacekeeping force for failing to intervene, as most of Nagorno-Karabakh’s 120,000 ethnic Armenians fled to Armenia. More here, here and here.
15) What was ratified by 12 nations in 1864 following a conference initiated by Swiss businessman Henri Dunant? Dunant's actions followed his horror at witnessing war in the Battle of Solferino in 1859.
The first Geneva Convention that governed the treatment of sick and wounded soldiers during war. More here, here and here. Subsequent Geneva Conventions have expanded humanitarian standards to wars at sea, prisoners of war, civilians in the time of war and civil wars.
16) While this term is defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, it has not been codified in a treaty of international law, unlike genocide and war crimes. Which term?
Crimes against humanity. More here and here.
Addendum
Belgium enacted a universal jurisdiction law in 1993 under which neither the complainant nor the accused needed to be Belgian. That prompted survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon during the Israeli invasion in 1982 to file a case in 2001 against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (who was Defence Minister in 1982). War crimes cases were also filed against other political leaders including Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Cuba's Fidel Castro and former U.S. president George H.W. Bush. The diplomatic backlash forced Belgium to repeal the law in 2003. More here, here and here.