Category talk:War crimes

Untitled

I created the category after finding six different articles, nearly all of which had a paragraph toward the end referencing each other. Not finding an extant appropriate category, I created this one.

— J’raxis (Talk) @ [[]] 07:20, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)

Genocides

Category:Genocides is a related category to this, but should not be a subcategory. Genocides that were also war crimes should simply have both category labels. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:47, 2005 August 8 (UTC)

Defined standards

Given the grief that's currently going on at Haditha killings and 2006 Qana airstrike over whether those pages qualify for this category, is anyone interested in writing some clear guidelines on the main page for what incidents qualify for this category? I don't have a particularly strong opinion over what those guidelines should be, as long as they're specific enough to resolve some of the page scuffles. As a starting proposal, I suggest:

This page categorizes subjects relating to war crimes. For specific events that have either been (1) legally ruled to be war crimes or (2) credibly alleged to be war crimes, see category:Legally established war crimes and category:Alleged war crimes respectively.

(Those two new categories would then be subcategories of this main cat). TheronJ 16:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion of Attacks on United Nations personnel during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict to this category didnt seem to be a problem then? 82.29.227.171 21:03, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Probably just because nobody noticed it. category:Terrorism has the same problem. On any given day, you have about a 60% chance of finding either Hamas or the Jewish Defense League, but probably not both. TheronJ 21:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Splitting into 2 categories Category:War crimes and Category:Alleged war crimes is a better compromise but won't completely solve the problem. If split, i agree something like " This category is for events legally ruled to be war crimes. For events credibly alleged to be war crimes, please refer to Category:Alleged war crimes" may be used as a header. The problem would be "what is enough" to assure credibility in the Alleged war crimes category. I also agree Category:Terrorism, Category:War criminals, Category:Terrorists have similar problems.--Wedian 21:55, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well people are alleging it would seem to be enough, people in a position to judge what constitutes a 'war crime' I mean. Is Israel signed up to the International Criminal Court? Nope. [1] Would the UN be able to prosecute when you need unanimous on the Security Council? Nope. [2] 'Accusations of warcrimes' or something like 'Untried allegations of..' or 'Unproven war crimes allegations'? That gets you around the case of their status as never going to court, and allows retrospective things like Guernica & Dresden bombing etc to fit in there- widely accepted as war crimes but only rhetorically declared so. 82.29.227.171 22:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I certainly agree with you. hope this would survive disputes. Any other opinions?--Wedian 18:16, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

This issue just came up with an attempt to include the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in this category. I'm inclined to agree with the separation between alleged and established war crimes based on formal international findings. Below is my post on the topic from talk:Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rem01 04:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

An attempt was made to assert (via the categories) that the atomic bombings were a war crime. This is a controversial, political opinion that is by no means commonly accepted or encyclopedic. Its inclusion in the "war crimes" category devalues that category; if anyone can classify an act as a war crime without use of some sort of objective criteria, the category will be reduced to a tool for political commentary. My off-the-cuff criteria for distinguishing a war crime would be some sort of formal international approbation, including UN Security Council resolutions to that effect, or findings of guilt in an international war crimes tribunal. Cross-posting to "war crimes" category talk page.