War crime is a military violation of the rules of warfare. Since World War II (1939-1945), the term has referred to any crime, atrocity, or persecution committed during the course of a war. For thousands of years, a wide variety of rules and customs have governed the conduct of warfare. These rules developed partly from the customs of chivalry and diplomacy and partly from the desire to limit the horror and destruction of war.
Throughout history, many people have been tried for war crimes. After World War I (1914-1918), the Treaty of Versailles required Germany to turn over about 900 persons for trial by the Allies as war criminals. Germany held its own trials instead. Only 13 of the 900 were tried. Those convicted received light sentences. In 1943, during World War II, the Allies set up the United Nations Crimes Commission in London. The commission collected evidence and compiled lists of war criminals. After the war, the main war crimes trials took place in Nuremberg, Germany, and Tokyo, Japan. The defendants were charged with starting wars of conquest and violating the rules of war. From 1945 to 1950, the Allies held many other war crimes trials in Europe and the Far East. Some countries that had been occupied by German or Japanese troops held their own trials of officers and occupation officials. West Germany also tried a number of Germans charged with war crimes committed during World War II.
The war crime trials after World War II drew criticism from some scholars and political leaders. They felt that international law provided no basis for the trials. In 1947, the UN established the International Law Commission to develop a code of international laws, including those governing war crimes. But the UN has not yet adopted such a code. In the 1990's, the UN began conducting trials of people accused of committing war crimes in civil wars in Rwanda and in the lands that had been part of Yugoslavia before that country began to break up in 1991. In 2001, the UN brought war crimes charges against Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Yugoslavia, in connection with conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and the Serbian province of Kosovo. In 1998, the UN approved a treaty calling for the creation of the International Criminal Court, a permanent UN body for trying war crimes and other offenses. The treaty took effect in 2002.
