Violation of the Laws and Customs of War: International Humanitarian Law and Enforcement Issues in Domestic Criminal Law

Abstract

Based on the fact that the entire history of human civilization has been constantly accompanied by wars, the statement that humanity, at least for the purpose of self-preservation, must develop certain rules for conducting wars, and also, which is more important, an effective mechanism for ensuring such rules, is indisputable. International humanitarian law, whose heyday dates back to the middle (second half) of the last century, undoubtedly developed a whole series of rules and customs of warfare, enshrined in relevant international acts. However, it is worth considering that the methods (methods) of conducting hostilities in the middle of the 20th century are significantly different from those used by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. A huge number of international norms and institutions remain powerless before the aggressor.
Norms of domestic criminal law are also far from perfect. There is a large number of publications on the peculiarities of the wording of Art. 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The authors claim that its current version will create several problematic points for law enforcement activities.
In the article, the author tries to show the correlation between the norms of international law and the criminal legislation of Ukraine.