Comprehensive Study Notes on Human Rights, Use of Force, Armed Conflict, and Criminal Responsibility
Chapter 8: Human Rights Glossary
Amnesty:
Definition: An agreement not to prosecute individuals for certain offenses, and to pardon individuals already convicted of those offenses.
Consular jurisdiction:
Definition: Separate legal systems for foreigners that were overseen by consular officials from the foreigners’ home-state.
Derogable right:
Definition: A right that can be suspended by states during public emergencies.
Ethnic cleansing:
Definition: The compelled removal of an ethnic group using intimidation or violence.
Genocide:
Definition: Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, which include:
Killing.
Causing serious bodily or mental harm.
Inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.
Preventing births.
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Human trafficking:
Definition: The use of force, fraud, or coercion to secure labor, including the recruitment, movement, harboring, or sale of individuals, both domestically and across international borders.
Individual petition:
Definition: A process that allows individuals to directly complain to an international organization if they believe that their rights have been violated by a state.
Margin of appreciation:
Definition: Doctrine that posits that because states have more knowledge about their own social context, a court ought to defer to states when applying legal standards.
Non-derogable right:
Definition: A right that a state must uphold in all circumstances.
Refoulement:
Definition: The forced return of migrants to states where they are likely to suffer severe human rights violations, like torture.
Relativism:
Definition: A set of ethical, moral, and political theories that argue that human rights must be understood within their social context.
Responsibility to protect:
Principle:
(1) Every state has the responsibility to protect its population from severe violations of human rights and humanitarian law.
(2) Failure to meet this responsibility can trigger force by the international community.
Scorecard diplomacy:
Definition: The public assessment and grading of states to influence behavior.
Social security:
Definition: Financial assistance to protect individuals from unexpected outcomes that harm their livelihoods, including accidents, disability, illness, involuntary unemployment, and the death of a spouse; sometimes also includes benefits for the elderly and pregnant women.
Special treaty body:
Definition: An international institution that monitors compliance with a multilateral human rights treaty and assesses individual petitions about possible violations.
Universal jurisdiction:
Definition: The principle that a domestic court can prosecute severe crimes that:
(1) Occurred on foreign territory.
(2) Involved only foreign nationals.
(3) Did not threaten the state’s national security.
Universalism:
Definition: A set of ethical, moral, and political theories that argue that human rights are inherent to mankind and do not vary across social contexts.
Chapter 9: Use of Force Glossary
Caroline test:
Definition: Criteria for evaluating the necessity of force; a threat must be “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation.”
Effective control test:
Definition: Principle that a group with control over a piece of territory has authority to represent that territory.
Gravity threshold:
Principle:
Asserted by the ICJ in the Nicaragua case; the use of force only qualifies as an “armed attack” (under the law of self-defense) if it is sufficiently severe.
Humanitarian intervention:
Definition: Using force to protect foreign nationals from mistreatment by their own government.
Jus ad bellum:
Definition: International law that regulates the initiation of armed conflict.
Military necessity:
Principle:
Force is only lawful if it is necessary to achieve a legitimate military objective; applies to both customary international law on the use of force (jus ad bellum) and armed conflict (jus in bello).
Negative equality doctrine:
Definition: Principle that outside states must remain neutral during civil wars and can only provide assistance to offset outside assistance from other states.
Proportionality:
Principle:
Force must be commensurate with a state’s objectives; applies to both customary international law on the use of force (jus ad bellum) and armed conflict (jus in bello).
Responsibility to protect:
Principle (repeated):
(1) Every state has the responsibility to protect its population from severe violations of human rights and humanitarian law.
(2) Failure to meet this responsibility can trigger force by the international community.
Chapter 10: Armed Conflict Glossary
Additional Protocol I:
Definition: 1977 treaty that addresses military conduct and protected people.
Additional Protocol II:
Definition: 1977 treaty that contains rules for non-international armed conflicts (NIACs).
Armed opposition groups:
Definition: Nonstate actors that fight to achieve political goals.
Belligerent occupation:
Definition: When one state has authority over another state’s territory without its consent.
Biological weapon:
Definition: Weapon that uses a living organism—such as a fungus or virus—to wound or kill animals, humans, or plants; examples include anthrax and weaponized measles.
Chemical weapon:
Definition: Weapon that uses a toxic chemical—in gas, liquid, or solid form—to wound or kill animals or humans; examples include chlorine, mustard, and tear gases.
Child soldier:
Definition: A person below fifteen who is serving in an armed group.
Combatant immunity:
Legal principle: Combatants may not be criminally prosecuted for their legal acts during armed conflict.
Common Article 3:
Definition: A legal provision included in all of the 1949 Geneva Conventions; requires humane treatment and the protection of the wounded and sick during NIACs.
Conventional weapons:
Definition: Weapons with relatively limited and precise effects in combat.
Distinction:
Principle: Separates civilians and combatants into different groups, limiting force against civilians; also sometimes called discrimination or identification.
Drones:
Definition: Unmanned aerial vehicles.
Geneva Conventions:
Definition: Four 1949 treaties that focus on protected people, including civilians and combatants who are captured, sick, or wounded.
Guerrilla warfare:
Definition: Combat in which armed groups do not distinguish themselves from civilians.
Hague law:
Definition: 1899 and 1907 agreements that regulate military operations and limit weapons.
Humanitarian law:
Definition: International laws that address suffering during war.
Humanity:
Principle: Requires states to avoid unnecessary suffering during war.
Indiscriminate attacks:
Definition: Attacks that:
Are not directed at a specific military objective.
Employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective.
Employ a method or means of combat with effects that cannot be limited.
Jus in bello:
Definition: International law that regulates behavior during armed conflicts.
Lieber Code:
Definition: Military document issued by US President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to the Northern army during the US Civil War; first modern codification of the laws of war.
Martens clause:
Definition: Treaty provision declaring that customary international law also governs armed conflict.
Military necessity:
Principle (repeated):
Force is only lawful if it is necessary to achieve a legitimate military objective; applies to both customary international law on the use of force (jus ad bellum) and armed conflict (jus in bello).
Military objective:
Definition: Objects which by their nature, location, purpose, or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction, capture, or neutralization offers a definite military advantage.
Non-international armed conflict:
Definition: The legal term for a civil war or other significant internal violence.
Occupying power:
Definition: A state whose military has authority over enemy territory.
Pillage:
Definition: The unlawful taking of property during conflict for private ends.
Prisoners of war:
Definition: Combatants who have fallen into the power of the enemy, usually by surrendering or being captured during battle.
Privateering:
Definition: Historical practice where states gave private actors authority to attack foreign vessels and seize them as prizes during war.
Proportionality:
Principle (repeated):
Force must be commensurate with a state’s objectives; applies to both customary international law on the use of force (jus ad bellum) and armed conflict (jus in bello).
Resource curse:
Definition: The claim that states with more natural resource wealth tend to experience worse economic, political, and social outcomes, including more armed conflict.
Chapter 11: Criminal Responsibility Glossary
Accessory liability:
Definition: A form of criminal liability in which an individual provides material or moral assistance that has a substantial effect on the crime, despite not having control over the crime.
Ad hoc criminal tribunals:
Definition: Institutions created by the UN Security Council in the 1990s to punish individuals for international crimes committed during the Yugoslavian and Rwandan armed conflicts.
Aggression:
Definition: Severe violation of international law on the use of force.
Amnesty:
Definition (repeated): An agreement not to prosecute individuals for certain offenses and to pardon individuals already convicted of those offenses.
Article 98 agreements:
Definition: Bilateral agreements in which states pledge not to surrender each other’s nationals to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Command responsibility:
Definition: A form of criminal responsibility in which military commanders are responsible if they fail to prevent or punish crimes committed by the troops under their effective control.
Complementarity:
Definition: The principle that an international criminal tribunal should complement, rather than supplement, other criminal tribunals.
Crime against humanity:
Definition: A group of criminal acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population during peace or armed conflict.
Defense:
Definition: A legal argument made by a defendant to avoid or minimize punishment.
Diplomatic immunity:
Definition: The principle that individuals who are diplomatic representatives of a state are not subject to another state’s jurisdiction.
Duress:
Definition: Pressure to perform an illegal act to avoid serious harm.
Ethnic cleansing:
Definition (repeated): The compelled removal of an ethnic group using intimidation or violence.
Extermination:
Definition: The intentional infliction of conditions of life, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population, including deprivation of access to food and medicine.
Genocide:
Definition (repeated): Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.
Individual criminal responsibility:
Definition: The principle that individuals have duties under international criminal law.
International Criminal Court (ICC):
Definition: A permanent court that prosecutes aggression, crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes.
Material element:
Definition: The physical act prohibited by law.
Mental element:
Definition: Individual knowledge of relevant facts and intent to commit a crime.
Mixed criminal tribunals:
Definition: Institutions that prosecute individuals using a blend of domestic and international law, personnel, and/or procedures.
Non-retroactivity:
Principle:
(1) Individuals may not be convicted for acts that were not illegal at the time that they were committed.
(2) Individuals may not be punished for acts unless law provided for such punishment at the time the act was committed.
Nulla poena sine lege:
Definition: “No punishment without law”, the principle that punishments cannot be applied retroactively.
Nullum crimen sine lege:
Definition: “No crime without law”, the principle that law cannot be applied retroactively.
Perpetrator responsibility:
Definition: A form of criminal responsibility in which an individual has control over whether a crime will occur.
Persecution:
Definition: The intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law of any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law.
State policy requirement:
Definition: The requirement that a state must have a common and preconceived plan or policy for committing an attack; relevant to the definition of crimes against humanity.
Superior responsibility:
Definition: A form of criminal responsibility in which civilian superiors are responsible if they fail to prevent or punish crimes committed by the subordinates under their effective control.
Universal jurisdiction:
Definition: The use of a state’s domestic law and institutions to regulate behavior that occurs outside of its domestic territory, does not involve its nationals, and does not have systematic or important effects on itself.
War crimes:
Definition: Serious violations of the law of armed conflict that create individual criminal responsibility.