Establishing an Individual Complaints Procedure for Violations of International Humanitarian Law

Abstract

Currently, no judicial or quasi-judicial mechanisms exist with the explicit competence to consider complaints of individuals claiming to be victims of violations of international humanitarian law. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) cannot fulfil this role as it has neither the means, the purpose nor the mandate to make enforceable judicial determinations with regard to claims of individuals alleging to be victims of such violations. Instead, it operates mainly through confidential discussions with governments. Likewise, criminal prosecutions of individual perpetrators before national or international courts, while contributing significantly to improving the implementation of humanitarian law, cannot and should not be the only answer to violations of the law. For one thing, the future International Criminal Court (ICC) will only consider the most serious violations of humanitarian law, leaving numerous other violations uninvestigated. Moreover, criminal prosecutions are concerned with individuals rather than parties to the conflict. The acts that are labelled as international crimes, however, find their basis in the collectivity. Crimes are unlikely to be prevented nor will compliance with their prohibition be significantly improved through criminal prosecution of individuals alone. Similarly, while the ICC may, either upon request or on its own motion, afford reparations to victims of war crimes, these are reparations afforded within the individual responsibility framework of the ICC. The Court may make an order directly against a convicted person rather than against a state or entity.