Does international law make individuals responsible for perpetrating war crimes during internal armed conflicts? Eve La Haye explores the content of international criminal law applicable in such conflicts and questions the 1995 finding of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia that responsibility could be enforced on the basis of customary international law. This finding is evaluated with regard to state practice and the practice of international organisations. The means to enforce individual criminal responsibility for such crimes are also investigated. The states on whose territory the crimes took place have sometimes tried such perpetrators, but can other states prosecute perpetrators of war crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction? The applicability of universal jurisdiction to war crimes committed in civil wars and the practice of domestic courts are examined, alongside the role and achievements of prosecutions carried out by international courts and tribunals.

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Since their publication in 1950s and 1980s, respectively, the Commentaries on the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 have become a major reference for the application and interpretation of these treaties. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), together with a team of renowned experts, is currently updating these Commentaries in order to document developments and provide up-to-date interpretations. The work on the first updated Commentary, the Commentary on the First Geneva Convention relating to the protection of the wounded and sick in the armed forces, has already been finalized. This article provides an overview of the methodology and process of the update and summarizes the main evolutions in the interpretation of the treaty norms reflected in the updated Commentary.

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