Destruction or wilful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion

Notion(s) Filing Case
Decision on Motions for Acquittal - 11.03.2005 HADŽIHASANOVIĆ & KUBURA
(IT-01-47-AR73.3)

47. The Appeals Chamber in the Tadić Jurisdiction Appeal found that the Article 3(d) prohibition against destruction or wilful damage to institutions dedicated to religion applied to both non-international and international armed conflict.[1] This Appeals Chamber affirms that conclusion.

48. The Appeals Chamber is satisfied that violations of the prohibition against “destruction or wilful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion” under Rule 3(d) entails, under customary law, the individual criminal responsibility of the person breaching the rule. […]

See also the omitted portions of para. 48 where the Appeals Chamber discusses legal sources.

[1]           Tadić Jurisdiction Decision, para. 86 (noting “this provision is based on the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, the Regulations annexed to that Convention, and the Nuremberg Tribunal's interpretation of those Regulations”); ibid., para. 87 (stating “the Hague Convention [is] considered qua customary law” applicable to international armed conflict); ibid., para. 98 (noting one rule of customary international law that applies to non-international armed conflict is Article 19 of the [1954] Hague Convention, which states that “[i]n the event of an armed conflict not of an international character occurring within the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the provisions of the present Convention which relate to respect for cultural property”, where respect for cultural property includes protection and safeguarding of “immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people, such as monuments of architecture... whether religious or secular”. See Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, and 19 1954 Hague Convention); ibid., para. 127 (noting the protection of cultural property as one of the “customary rules [that] have developed to govern internal strife”).

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ICTY Statute Article 3(d)