By Anthony Deutsch
The escalation of the conflict with Iran has led to airstrikes on infrastructure throughout the Middle East and threats, notably from American President Donald Trump, looming over oil facilities, electricity production sites, and desalination plants that supply the civilian population.
According to some experts, if these actions were carried out, they could constitute war crimes.
WHAT DOES INTERNATIONAL LAW SAY?
The 1949 Geneva Conventions on humanitarian behavior in times of war prohibit attacks on sites considered essential for civilians: “Under no circumstances shall measures be taken against objects which would deprive the civilian population (…) of food or water in sufficient quantities.”
They explicitly forbid attacks on “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, facilities and stocks of drinking water, and irrigation works…”
HAVE WARRANTS BEEN ISSUED FOR ATTACKS ON INFRASTRUCTURE IN OTHER CONFLICTS?
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has invoked attacks on critical infrastructure, such as power plants and fuel facilities in Ukraine, in the warrants it issued against Russian political and military leaders.
In July 2024, the ICC accused former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian General Valery Gerasimov of war crimes for targeting the Ukrainian power grid in the dead of winter.
Russia has denied allegations of war crimes and claims to have launched a special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 in self-defense.
In the ICC warrant targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the judges “found reasonable grounds to believe that these two individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population of Gaza of essential elements for its survival, including food, water, medicines, medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
The cutting of electricity and fuel supply “had a serious impact on the availability of water in Gaza and on the hospitals’ ability to provide medical care,” the judges concluded. These conditions “resulted in the deaths of civilians, including children, due to malnutrition and dehydration,” they stated.
Israel also denies the accusations of war crimes and asserts that it targeted militants in Gaza and Lebanon in self-defense against an existential threat.
WERE THESE “MILITARY TARGETS”?
The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols stipulate that parties involved in an armed conflict must distinguish between “civilian objects and military objectives,” and that attacks on civilian objects are prohibited.
This prohibition is also codified in the Rome Statute of the ICC, which is a court of last resort for 125 countries but does not include major powers such as Russia, the United States, and China, as they have not ratified the Rome Statute.
The Geneva Conventions state that certain installations owned and used by civilians may be considered military objectives, but only “objects which, by their nature, location, purpose, or use, make an effective contribution to military action,” and whose destruction or capture “offers a definite military advantage.”
COULD THESE VIOLATIONS BE PROSECUTED?
A case related to the current Middle East conflict is unlikely to be brought before a war crimes tribunal in the near future. None of the Gulf states, nor Israel nor Iran, are members of the ICC. There is no other institution with clear jurisdiction over presumed war crimes in the region.
Divisions within the UN Security Council, which can refer cases to The Hague, also make it unlikely that a case related to the conflict will be brought before the Court.
National authorities could gather evidence of presumed war crimes and prosecute them under universal jurisdiction laws, but there are currently no public cases.
(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; with Stephanie van den Berg, Mara Vilcu for the French version)
