A Comprehensive Analysis of the Construction of War Crimes Based on International Humanitarian Law and the Evolution of the Enforcement of Justice Through the Global Criminal Justice Mechanism for Perpetrators

Abstract

Armed conflict is a sociological and political reality that continues to occur in human civilization. To prevent the destruction of civilization, the international community formulated an instrument of international humanitarian law that served to provide protection to those who were not involved in the conflict and limit the means and methods of warfare. Violations of such restrictions are not only violations of military discipline, but are qualified as war crimes that give rise to criminal responsibility at the individual level. This research aims to examine in depth the juridical construction of war crimes based on the instruments of the 1949 Geneva Convention and the 1998 Rome Statute, as well as analyze the evolution of the international criminal justice mechanism in prosecuting perpetrators. This study uses normative legal research methods with a legislative approach, a conceptual approach, and a historical approach. The results of the study showed that war crimes are a form of grave breaches that include intentional killings, torture, unlawful deportations, and attacks on civilian objects. Law enforcement against these perpetrators has undergone significant evolution, from the establishment of ad hoc military courts such as the post-World War II Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), to the permanent institutionalization of the judiciary through the International Criminal Court (ICC). The presence of these judicial institutions affirms the principle that there is no impunity for perpetrators of gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law at the global level.