JURIST - Paper Chase: US accused of war crimes in Iraq

In international law news Tuesday, according to a letter sent to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by Human Rights Watch, the US may have violated the 1949 Geneva Conventions by demolishing homes of suspected insurgents and arresting the relatives of Iraqi fugitives. According to the HRW letter:

[T]he detention of close relatives for the purpose of prompting the surrender of a wanted person appears to be in violation of the strict international humanitarian law prohibition against hostage-taking. Under the laws of war, a hostage is a person taken into custody for the purpose of compelling some course of action by the opposing side. Taking hostages is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions – in other words, a war crime.

In addition, HRW says that "the demolition of homes of Iraqis on at least four recent occasions... did not meet the test of military necessity." According to a military spokesperson, "assertions that the coalition is intentionally attacking homes as a matter of collective punishment are false" and "people are not arrested because they are related to other suspects – people are detained because they themselves are suspects." Read HRW's press release and the full story from AP.... In other news, as expected, and as reported yesterday on JURIST's Paper Chase, the European Commission has voted to ask the European Court of Justice to reverse the decision by European finance ministers to suspend the rules of the Euro Stability and Growth Pact for France and Germany. Read the European Commission's press release on today's vote and the full story from BBC News.

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