Ukraine dam: When do attacks on civilian installations amount to war crimes?
Stephanie Van Den Berg and Anthony Deutsch | The Geneva Conventions and its protocols explicitly ban war-time attacks on “installations containing dangerous forces” such as dams due to the risk posed to civilians, a prohibition likely to come into focus after the destruction of a huge Ukrainian dam. ● Ukraine accused Russia on Tuesday of blowing up the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River that separates Russian and Ukrainian forces in southern Ukraine, inundating a populated region of the war zone and forcing villagers to flee. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ukraine sabotaged the dam to distract attention from its faltering counteroffensive. Attack on a dam: What kind of crime could it be? — The 1949 Geneva Convention’s subsequent protocols specifically cover attacks on “installations containing dangerous forces,” such as hydroelectric dams. Such installations should not be attacked even if they are legitimate military objectives, “if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population,” the protocols, dating from 1977 say. There is no mention of dams in the 1998 founding statute of the International Criminal Court. But the statute does criminalize “intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.” What does international law say? — The Geneva Conventions and additional protocols shaped by international courts say that parties involved in a military conflict must distinguish between “civilian objects and military objectives,” and that attacks on civilian objects are forbidden. This prohibition is also codified in the Rome Statute of the ICC, which opened an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine soon after Russia’s February 2022 invasion, and has been examining attacks on infrastructure.
■ UN agencies in Ukraine to assess impact of dam's destruction (XinhuaNet)
■ Russia holds West responsible for dam disaster – UN envoy (06/07/23)