hello everyone welcome to the series of public international law lectures by the global institute of law my name is paris zuffer currently research fellow at the gil today our theme of discussion is international humanitarian law international criminal court and international criminal tribunals so today we will discuss following main topics first of all an introduction to international humanitarian law and its applicability followed by its sources and fundamental key principles of ihl secondly we will be looking at a brief introduction of international criminal law and international criminal court and its mandate and finally a brief discussion concerning the international tribunals such as international criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia and international criminal tribunal for the rawanda so let's begin with our discussion when talking about international humanitarian law so it can be defined as a branch of public international law that regulates the contact of estate parties during an armed conflict iecel is also known as houston bellow which basically means just in war iesel seeks to limit the consequences of armed conflict by a number of principles and rules with moving ahead with the applicability of ihl isl applies only to the situations of the arms conflicts so therefore here arises a question that what is meant by this phrase arms conflict and when a situation could be considered to amount to an armed conflict the phrase armed conflict has been defined by the international criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia icty in the case of prosecutor versus tajik wherein it has been held that an armed conflict exists whenever there is a resort to armed forces between two states or between state and organized armed groups so therefore isl applies from the initiation or beginning of such armed conflicts and extends beyond the secession of hostilities moving ahead with the classification of the armed conflicts so basically there are two main categories or classes of armed conflict first is international arms conflict a conflict of international character that occurs between two are more than two states so whenever the two are more than two states are parties to an arms conflict then this is known as an armed conflict of international character or ayak secondly an armed conflict that occurs within the territory of a state between the governmental authorities and organized armed groups is known as the non-international arms conflict moving ahead with the sources of isl before we look at the sources we must be able to know that what the phrase source itself means the term source refers to those methods are procedures from which anything is derived as i have already mentioned that ihl is a branch of public international law therefore the sources of ihl are similar to that of public international law mainly in the form of treaties and customs for example treaty sources of ihl are very first geneva convention of 1864 health convention of 1907 four geneva conventions of 1949 two additional protocols of 1977 and one additional protocol of 2005. apart from these 3t sources isl has a customary source that is known as the customary rules of ihl apart from these treaty and customary sources the very first historical and situational source of isl is considered to be the battle of solferino battle of solferino was the very first battle that highlighted the need of the codified rules governing and regulating the conduct of the states during a war or armed conflict salvarino is a small town located in northern italy and this battle took place in 1859 and the aftermath of the battle was witnessed by henry dunant who then on his return from geneva written a book that is that was titled as a memory of solferino which was published in 1862 and therefore it could be considered as a very first source that's late to the adoption of the geneva conventions of 1862 unfounded n6 and also later establishment of international committee of red cross moving ahead with the first cinema convention of 1864. so it was the very first international treaty which was adopted by states this convention basically provided protection to those soldiers who were horsely combat due to illness or wounds it also provided for the protection to the religious and medical personal however this convention was replaced by the four geneva conventions of 1949 four geneva conventions of 1949 basically form the core of the ihl these conventions specifically protect those people who are not are no longer taking part in hostilities such as civilians prisoners of war hosting combat or soldiers the geneva conventions came into force on 21st of october 1950 and moving ahead with a brief account of each of the four geneva conventions so geneva convention 1 is basically concerned with the amelioration of condition of the bounded sick and shipwrecked members of the armed forces on the battlefield it contains 64 articles and it provides protection to the wounded and sick soldiers on the battlefield during war specifically during arms conflict moving ahead with the second convention geneva convention 2 of 1949 provides protection to the armed forces but not at the battlefield as at the sea it consists of 63 articles which are specifically applicable during armed conflicts and war taking place at the sea geneva convention 3 of 1949 relates to the treatment of prisoners of war this convention has replaced the pre-existing prisoners of war convention of 1929 it consists of 143 articles and it has broadly characterized the categories of persons who are entitled to the status of prisoners of war [Music] the third geneva convention also lays down an important principle that prisoners of war shall be repatriated and released without any delay after the secession of war or armed conflicts finally fourth seniva convention provides protection to the civilians in the times of war it provides specific protection to those civilians who are usually mostly affected by the reason of the armed conflict because prior to fourth cinema convention all other conventions were only adopted to provide protection to the combatants and not civilians however events of the world war ii witnessed the disastrous consequences of the absence of a convention for protection of civilians in times of war this convention is composed of 159 articles which specifically deal with the status and treatment of the protected persons it also contains detailed provisions for the humanitarian treatment and relief of the civilian population who are in the occupation of the occupying state so moving to the additional protocols to the geneva conventions additional protocol basically are those international treaties that supplement the geneva conventions of 1949 they have significantly improved the legal protection conferred upon the civilians and bounded and also laid down detailed humanitarian rules that apply during civil wars these protocols were adopted by the states for the purpose of making isl more complete universal and more adaptive to the changing situations of the arms conflict currently there are three additional protocols in place namely additional protocol 1 of 1977 that applies only to international armed conflicts additional protocol 2 applies to situations of non-international armed conflict an additional protocol 3 of 2005 it further established additional embellium the red crystal that have the same status as the existing red cross and red crescent imbalance moving with the fundamental principles of ihl so isl basically has laid down a few key fundamental principles which with which parties are bound to follow during the situations of arms conflict the very first principle is the principle of distinction the principle of distinction is a fundamental pillar of ihl that requires parties of the conflict to differentiate between the combatants and civilians and between military objectives and civilian objectives the second principle is principle of proportionality which requires that attacks during armed conflicts must be proportionate thirdly there is a principle of necessity which requires that only that force may be used that is necessary as a matter of last resort now moving ahead with the international criminal law given the fact that grave violations of the ihl may not only be committed by the states but by individuals as well therefore a strong need for a law was felt which may help individuals accountable for the crimes committed during the situations of armed conflict therefore there was a need of international criminal law international criminal law is also a branch of public international law that is designed to hold individuals who are responsible for serious violations of international law to account before the law it has been rightly said that crimes against international law are committed by men and not by abstract entities and only by punishing those individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced like other branches of public international law the sources of icl may be found in the treaties customary international law and general principles of law further on for the enforcement of the international criminal law we have an international criminal court international criminal court is a treaty-based permanent institution with legal personality it was created to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole icc is a neutral judicial body which observes the highest standard of the fairness and due process it has been established in 1998 for exercising jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide aggression crimes against humanity and war crimes moving ahead with international criminal tribunals international criminal tribunals are also one of the enforcement branches of the international criminal law so at this stage we will be looking at the two main international criminal tribunals these are international criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia and for rwanda these tribunals were created to deal with specific conflict the international criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia or icty was established in 1993 by the united nations security council the united nations security council decided to establish an international tribunal for the sole purpose of prosecuting persons who were responsible for the serious violations of ihl committed in the territory of the former yugoslavia between 1st january 1991 and a date to be determined by the security council the security council similarly established the international criminal tribunal for the rwanda ictr in 1994 so as to prosecute those persons who were responsible for the genocide and other serious violations of ihl committed in the territory of the rwanda and neighboring estates now both of these tribunals have been wound up and mechanism which replaces the icty in ictr has now been established the mechanism for international criminal tribunals was established by the security council on 22nd of december 2010 to carry out of a number of essential functions of ictr and ict while after the completion of their respective mandates in terms of the legal developments and applications of ihl the icty and ictr have been profoundly impossible ictr was the very first international tribunal to deliver verdicts in relation to the genocide and it was the first to interpret the definition of the genocide set forth in 1948 geneva convention it also critically defined rape in international criminal law and recognized rape as a means of perpetrating genocide although icc is different in this regard but it should be noted that international criminal tribunals do not have like national courts a criminal code or penal laws but rather statutes that include the crimes over which they have jurisdiction and with this we conclude today's discussion on the ihl