The War Crime Of Starvation – The Irony Of Grasping At Low Hanging Fruit

…Hamas members [being] complicit in the kidnapping and unlawful deprivation of liberty of all the hostages … seems like a crime that can be established beyond any doubt.

This is not the case with the war crime of starvation. … [A] result of starvation does not ipso facto establish a violation. … In short, it is one thing to regret the tragic humanitarian suffering resulting from an armed conflict; it is quite another to infer from that suffering the requisite actions and mental state needed to prove it is the result of the war crime of starvation…

Geoffrey S. Corn is the George R. Killam, Jr. Chair of Criminal Law and Director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University School of Law and a JINSA Distinguished Fellow.

Dr Emanuela-Chiara Gillard is a Consulting Fellow in Chatham House’s International Law Programme and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict.

Read the full op-ed in the Articles of War.