War crimes as a form of human rights violations

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of war crimes as a form of human rights violations. The main features of war crimes and responsibility for their commission are allocated. Like crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, war crimes are committed with a deliberate form of guilt. Most of these criminal acts are committed with direct intent (dolus directus). Features of the objective side of war crimes cause the presence of such a sign as a special subject. To determine the contextual element of war crimes, that is, to establish the connection of these criminal acts with an armed conflict of an international or non-international nature, it is necessary to determine the nature of the relevant armed conflict and to refer to the norms of international humanitarian law, which is subsidiary in nature, since the International Criminal Court primarily applies the Rome Statute, Elements of crimes, as well as the Rules of Procedure and Evidence. The Rome Statute enshrines more “lenient” norms regarding responsibility for war crimes compared to the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity. This is due to the following factors: a significant number of war crimes, and therefore these acts may not be known in full to ordinary combatants, and their criminal nature may not be obvious to them; features of the psychology of participants in an armed conflict who fall into a situation of “legalized murder”, which quite often does not allow separating the legal means and methods of warfare from illegal ones.