Human RightsGrave Violations

Week 9

Human rights violations occur when

any state or non-state actor breaches any

part of international human rights or

humanitarian law. In regard to human

rights violations of United Nations laws.

Article 39 of the United Nations chartar

designates the UN Security Council as

the only tribunal that may determine UN

human rights violations.

Human rights abuses are monitored by United Nations committees, national institutions and governments and by many independent non-governmental organizations(Amnesty International, International Federation of Human Rights, human rights Watch, World Organization Against Torture, Freedom House, International Freedom Of Expression Exchange, Anti-Slavery International).

These organizations collect evidence and documentation of alleged human rights abuses and apply pressure to enforce human rights laws.

Wars of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity including genocide, are breaches of International humantarian law and represent the most serious of human rights violations.

Summary executions:

Summary executions are a grave violation of the

right to life, involving killings carried out by

government agents or with their complicity.

This may include death through the use of excessive

force by the military, police, or security forces.

Torture: Torture is defined as severe pain or suffering, whether

physical or mental, inflicted by public official or person acting in an official capacity, for such purposes as: obtaining from the person on whom it is inflicted or a third person for an information or a confession; punishing a person for an act which he/she or a third person has committed or is suspected to what have committed; forcing him/her or a third person for any reason based on discrimination of any kind.

Arbitrary arrest and detention:This involves deprivation of liberty by a public official, such as a member of the military or police, or any other person acting in an official capacity or with official instigation, consent without a valid and legal reason, by detaining a person in a prison or other detention facility.

Discrimination: This can be based on race, sex, national or social origin,

political opinion, color, religion, language, birth, property, or

other grounds.

Violence against women: It includes all forms of physical, sexual, and psychological violence whether occurring in the community, in the family (domestic violence), or committed by public officials.

Genocide:Acts committed with an intent to destroy,in whole or in part

a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, including:• Killing members of the group.

• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

• Inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part.

• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the groups.

• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

War crimes :War crimes are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. They are prohibited acts committed against persons and property protected by the Conventions, including willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, illegal detention, hostage-taking, the arbitrary and unlawful destruction and of property, and others.

Deportation and forcible transfer of populations:

This includes situations when the inhabitants are

forcibly evicted from their place of domicile and

deported to an alien land on any reason. This has

been frequently observed during ethnic conflicts.

Rape and sexual exploitation:

Recent conflicts have seen the use of rape as a weapon, especially in ethnic conflicts with the intent, humiliate, and degrade the opposing ethnic community.

The International Criminal Tribunal on the Former Yugoslavia has ruled that rape at the instigation of a public official in situations of armed conflict is torture.

Crimes against humanity: These are serious human rights violations. They include the following acts when they are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population with knowledge of the attack. These acts are absolutely prohibited under international law:

• Murder.• Extermination.• Enslavement.• Torture.• Deportation or the forcible transfer of the population.• Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty.• Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution or sterilization, and forced pregnancy.• Persecution against any political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender group.• Enforced disappearance.