LAWS 2709

This course introduces students to the law governing the conduct of armed conflict and to the crimes for which individuals incur individual criminal responsibility under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The law of armed conflict, or international humanitarian law, is a set of rules which seeks to limit the effects of armed conflict. It protects persons who are not or are no longer participating in hostilities and restricts the means and methods of warfare that may be employed by parties to a conflict. International humanitarian law faces a number of challenges in contemporary armed conflicts, which differ significantly from the types of conflicts that were prevalent when this body of law was first developed. A recent approach to addressing certain violations of international humanitarian law has been the establishment of international criminal tribunals and mixed international / domestic tribunals tasked with prosecuting individuals allegedly responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law and other serious international crimes. The first part of the course will examine the history, principles, operation and application of international humanitarian law. The second part of the course will focus on the development of the law applicable to individual criminal responsibility, immunity, substantive elements of crimes, and certain modes of liability under international criminal law.