Additional Protocols - complements to a treaty or body of international law. For example, the original Geneva Conventions of 1949 were supplemented by two additional protocols in 1977.
Enslavement - a crime against humanity - the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership over a person and includes the exercise of such power in the course of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children.
Ethnic Cleansing - forcibly displacing or exterminating an ethnic population from a particular area in order to assert the identity and power of another ethnic group.
Geneva Conventions - treaties signed in Geneva in 1949, which form the basis of modern international humanitarian law. They concern: wounded and sick of armed forces, prisoners of war and the civilian population.
Genocide - deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, religious or cultural group, through killing, injuring, worsening of the conditions of life, prevention of births or transfer of children.
Humanity - The International Red Cross and Red Crescent, born of a desire to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded and sick on the battlefield, endeavours, in its international and national capacity, to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, cooperation, and lasting peace among all peoples.
International Armed Conflict - fighting between the armed forces of at least two countries.
Non-international Armed Conflict - also called internal conflict or civil war. Fighting on the territory of a State between the regular armed forces and identifiable armed groups, or between armed groups fighting one another.
Sexual Violence - a particularly brutal crime to which women are all too frequently subjected in wartime. It is a means of warfare when used to torture, injure, extract information, degrade, intimidate and punish for actual or alleged deeds attributed to women or members of their family.
Torture - the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental.
Posted February 1, 2008 |
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