Page 61 - karabag raporu eng

On-Site Investigation Report on Human Rights in Karabakh

and between civilian objects and military objectives and accord-
ingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.”
€ In the second paragraph of Article 52:

y “Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far
as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those
objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an
effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial
destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling
at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”

On the other hand, according to Article 85 of the same Protocol, grave breach-
es of the Protocol include making the civilian population or individual civil-
ians the object of attack and launching an indiscriminate attack affecting the
civilian population or civilian objects in the knowledge that such attack will
cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects.

As another important regulation in terms of International Humanitarian Law,
War Crimes are defined in Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court (ICC). Accordingly, war crimes include “intentionally directing
attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians
not taking direct part in hostilities; intentionally directing attacks against
civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives; attacking
or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings
which are undefended and which are not military objectives; employing
weapons, projectiles, and material and methods of warfare which are of a
nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are in-
herently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed con-
flict, provided that such weapons, projectiles, and material and methods of
warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in
an annex to this Statute, by an amendment in accordance with the relevant
provisions set forth in articles 121 and 123.”
Both the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the ICC stipulate the
protection of civilians, civilian property, and towns, villages, and settlements
that do not constitute military objectives. The fact that Armenia targeted
civilians and civil buildings and caused civil losses is a grave violation of the
1 Protocol (1977) Additional to the Geneva Conventions (1949) and is also
st
a war crime in accordance with Article 8(b) of the Rome Statute of the ICC.
On the other hand, civilian casualties were caused by attacks with ballistic
missiles and heavy artillery, which is an obvious war crime due to the char-
acteristics of these weapons and the damage they have caused/may cause.

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