War Crimes

President Bush authorized a war of aggression against Iraq, authorized conduct of the war that involved the commission of “war crimes”, authorized the occupation of Iraq involving the commission of war crimes”, “crimes against humanity” and other illegal acts. (Laws violated include but are not limited to: United Nations Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Geneva Conventions of 1949, United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, The Nuremberg Principles, and others).

U.S. Code:

Title 18, Part I, Chapter 118, § War crimes.

(a) Offense. — Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

(b) Circumstances. — The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).

(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;

(2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;

(3) which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or

(4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians.

International Criminal Court (ICC)
Established in The Hague (Netherlands) in 2002:
The Rome Statute provides for the ICC to have jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

War Crimes are defined in the statute that established the International Criminal Court, which includes:

Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, such as:

Willful killing, or causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health Torture or inhuman treatment Unlawful wanton destruction or appropriation of property Forcing a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of a hostile power Depriving a prisoner of war of a fair trial Unlawful deportation, confinement, or transfer Taking hostages

The following acts as part of an international conflict:

Directing attacks against civilians
Directing attacks against humanitarian workers or UN peacekeepers
Killing a surrendered combatant
Misusing a flag of truce
Settlement of occupied territory
Deportation of inhabitants of occupied territory
Poison weapons
Using civilian shields
Child soldiers

The following acts as part of a non-international conflict:

Murder, cruel or degrading treatment, and torture
Directing attacks against civilians, humanitarian workers, or UN peacekeepers
Taking hostages
Summary execution
Pillage
Rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, or forced pregnancy

Article 7 of the treaty stated: “For the purpose of this Statute, "Crime Against Humanity" means any of the following acts
when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the
attack:

Murder;
Extermination;
Enslavement;
Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
Torture;
Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
Enforced disappearance of persons;
The crime of apartheid;
Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

According to the Commentary on the Rome Statute:

[Crimes against humanity] are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. However, murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of meriting the stigma attaching to the category of crimes under discussion. On the other hand, an individual may be guilty of crimes against humanity even if he perpetrates one or two of the offences mentioned above, or engages in one such offence against only a few civilians, provided those offences are part of a consistent pattern of misbehavior by a number of persons linked to that offender (for example, because they engage in armed action on the same side or because they are parties to a common plan or for any similar reason.) Consequently when one or more individuals are not accused of planning or carrying out a policy of inhumanity, but simply of perpetrating specific atrocities or vicious acts, in order to determine whether the necessary threshold is met one should use the following test: one ought to look at these atrocities or acts in their context and verify whether they may be regarded as part of an overall policy or a consistent pattern of a inhumanity, or whether they instead constitute isolated or sporadic acts of cruelty and wickedness.