International Humanitarian Law

The Nuremberg Trials

• Originated following the second World War after the United States was able to convince the other Allies to hold trials for Nazi war criminals rather than simply executing them

  • These trials happened in Nuremberg, making them known as the Nuremberg Trials

The International Criminal Court

• The International Criminal Court itself began to take shape in the later twentieth century following several more genocides and crimes against humanity which took place primarily in Europe and Africa

• The Rome Conference in 1998 was what truly formed the ICC as we currently know it, allowing an international body to investigate and prosecute major, widespread crimes

• While the United States lobbied for a court in which it would have more control, the country was ultimately unsuccessful

  • This meant that the United States did not join the ICC, in large part because it feared that its own crimes would be prosecuted

• The court was officially founded in 2002 and since then has served as the main institution for taking legal action against crimes against humanity such as genocide and war crimes

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

• First assembled in 1979 by the United Nations in an effort, as its name may suggest, to combat inequities and discrimination faced by women and girls globally

  • The UN Women website describes it as the “international bill of rights for women” and identifies the convention as a turning point in global gender-based policy

• This is because the convention is widely viewed as the first form of effective international law pertaining to upholding the rights of women, specifically through the lenses of education, employment, healthcare, politics, and public life

• CEDAW also made an effort to include specific forms of discrimination and guides to combatting them in order to ensure that the policy could realistically be implemented and had a clear basis for doing so, rather than just being a general set of guidelines that could easily be glossed over or ignored

Peacekeeping Strategies

Traditional Peacekeeping

• The UN’s original approach to peacekeeping

• Consisted largely of containing international warfare through the use of an outside military force

Complex/Multidimensional Peacekeeping

• Responses to a wider range of international conflicts, primarily addressing civil wars and ethno-nationalist conflicts

Peacebuilding

• Peacebuilding is defined as “working to maintain law and order in failing or disintegrating societies by aiding in civil administration, policing, and rehabilitating infrastructure.”

• Has been used most notably in the Middle East and Eastern Africa, prioritizing humanitarian aid and democratic principles above the use of force