The widening Iran conflict has led to airstrikes on infrastructure across the Middle East and threats to focus on oil facilities, electricity production sites and desalination plants that provide civilians, which some experts say could amount to war crimes if carried out.
The 1949 Geneva Conventions on humanitarian conduct in war prohibit attacks on sites considered essential for civilians: “In no event shall actions against these objects be taken which could also be expected to depart the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation or force its movement.”
They explicitly prohibit attacks on “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, corresponding to foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works.”
The International Criminal Court cited attacks on critical infrastructure, corresponding to electricity and fuel plants in Ukraine, in arrest warrants it issued for political and military leaders in Russia.
In July 2024, the ICC accused Sergei Shoigu, the previous Russian defence minister, and leading Russian general Valery Gerasimov, of war crimes for targeting Ukraine’s power grid in the course of winter.
Russia has denied allegations of war crimes and says it launched a special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 in self defence.
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Within the ICC’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, judges “considered that there are reasonable grounds to imagine that each individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, in addition to fuel and electricity.”
The cutting off of electricity and reducing fuel supply “had a severe impact on the provision of water in Gaza and the power of hospitals to supply medical care,” the judges found. The conditions “resulted within the death of civilians, including children, as a consequence of malnutrition and dehydration,” they said.
Israel also denies war crimes allegations and says it has targeted militants in Gaza and Lebanon in self defence against an existential threat.
Could these be ‘military targets’?
The Geneva Conventions and extra protocols say that parties involved in military conflict must distinguish between “civilian objects and military objectives,” and that attacks on civilian objects are forbidden.
This prohibition can be codified within the Rome Statute of the ICC, which is a court of last resort for 125 countries, but which doesn’t include major powers corresponding to Russia, america and China.
The Geneva Conventions say some infrastructure owned and utilized by civilians can count as a military objective, but only “objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an efficient contribution to military motion,” and whose destruction or capture “offers a definite military advantage.”
Where could violations be prosecuted?
A case on the present Middle East conflict is unlikely to find yourself in a war crimes court any time soon.
Not one of the Gulf states, Israel or Iran are members of the ICC.
Meaning there is no such thing as a other institution with clear jurisdiction over alleged war crimes within the region.
Division throughout the U.N. Security Council, which might send cases to The Hague, means it is usually unlikely that a case on the conflict is referred to the court.
National authorities could collect evidence of alleged war crimes and prosecute them under so-called universal jurisdiction laws, but there are currently no public cases.