The international legal order is in decline, and the West who has compensated the system for a long time is divided. However, it is also true that some part of international law transcends the existing scope of international law and precedes it; This part is called the International Humanitarian Law (DIH), better known by its previous name ‘The Law of War’.
The IHL develops a very unique law zone that deals with Jus in Bello (law in the war) that sounds oximoronic. The IHL is deeply rooted in customary international law and is reinforced by the main religions of the world that find their principles of civil protection, protection of women and children, need, distinction and proportionality as universal values and as shared values. Throughout the world, the professional military train in this branch of the law through the good offices of the International Red Cross Committee (CICR), which has an international mandate to disseminate it.
Professional military imbute DIH’s principles in their training and operations. As of today, the Consuetudinario International Law has been largely encoded through the Treaty Law, resulting in Hague conventions and Geneva Conventions and its protocols.
The most specifically, human violations are called war crimes and crimes against humanity. The list of violations was extended through the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (CPI Statute) in 1998 and included the crimes of aggression and genocide. The complementary part of the IHL is the Jus Ad Bellum (Law of War), which is largely political and is administered within the parameters of the UN letter and by the one.
India used Pahalgam’s incident as a Casus Belli (cause of war) to initiate an international armed conflict (IAC) against Pakistan. The categorization of the IAC has attracted the application of IHL to the acts of India; Therefore, their illegal, illegal and unilateral acts can be declared as international errors and war crimes.
India is not part of the CPI and cannot be prosecuted for these crimes; However, the purpose of advertising is to register war crimes committed by India and affirm that the criminal liability of India leadership is not reduced or mitigated due to lack of a prosecution mechanism.
The main war crimes committed by India are: First, India used water as a means and method of war. Unilaterally, illegally and without reason or rhyme, he chose to leave the Treaty of the Waters of the Indo (IWT) by putting it in ‘absence’, a phrase outside the Treaty and the Vienna Agreement on the Treaty Law (VCLT).
In addition to ignoring the IWT backed by the World Bank, India violated article 54 of the additional protocol I to the conventions of Geneva (AP-I) that prohibited the “hunger for civilians as a method of war.”
This prohibition was not simply declaration, but was criminalized as a war crime (article 8 (2) (b) (XXV) of the CPI Statute). It should be noted that the criminal responsibility is of a personal nature and the officers/people involved in committing the war crime to starve to the civilian population will be personally responsible for war crimes committed.
Second, India violated article 2 of the UN Charter, which forced him to respect the principle of sovereign equality and refrain from using the force or threat of force against Pakistan’s territorial integrity. Article 2 (3) of the UN letter specifically demanded from India to resolve the dispute through peaceful means. On May 7, 2025, he attacked nine places of worship and killed 26 innocent civilians, including women and children, violating the UN letter and the use of force in such ‘character, gravity and scale …’ which was equivalent to ‘aggression’ in terms of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly 3314 (XXIX).
The “bombing” of India was a violation of articles 48, 49, 50 and 51 of the additional protocol to the conventions of Geneva, 1977 (AP-I). The violation of attacker civilians has been criminalized by the CPI statute in its article 8 as a war crime. Most ‘locations’/attacked places are mosques/places of worship. This clearly violates article 53 of the AP-I that prohibits the places of attack cult. The act of attacking religious buildings has been included as a war crime under the CPI statute. Therefore, India can and must account for committing this atrocious war crime.
Third, the law of war clearly prohibits armed attacks against works and facilities that contain dangerous forces such as prey/water deposits in article 56 of the AP-I. India’s attack against the Neelum-Jhelum hydroelectric project was a clear violation of this important disposition that specifically prohibited the critical infrastructure that could endanger civil populations.
Fourth, up to 29 drones were demolished in a day in several urban areas of Pakistan, and 77 in two days. Unmanned drones hit civil populations, even in a Crickt Stadium in Rawalpindi, they presented the illegality in the use of drones by India, since these were not aimed at military objectives and apparently did not use the principle of distinction.
No precautionary steps were taken as anticipated in articles 36 and 57 of the AP-I. Article 36 of the AP-I required that the part of the AP-I (India signed and ratified the IHL instruments), when using new weapons (such as a drone in this case), should have ensured that protection was not violated under the laws of the IHL.
Finally, India has been offering all kinds of bad justifications for its inability to comply with the universally accepted DIH principles during its military actions on May 7. On the murder of women and children, India tried to hide behind the “collateral damage” without showing what was the “direct or real damage” that he intended to hit.
Using its right to self -defense according to the provisions of article 51 of the UN Charter, Pakistan responded to the military objectives in India in line with the principles of IHL. Pakistan reserves the right to request repairs for the damage caused by India in his last aggression against Pakistan.
However, it can be seen that the impunity with which India is violating international law does not preceding, since it is an imitator of Israel and the United States in many aspects; However, it should be remembered that illegality generates illegality and that the Book of Rules of Impunity can certainly be copied by all when the impulse is pushed.
The writer is a police officer in service, who works as a technical acquisition of excavation for the Punjab police, Lahore.
Discharge of responsibility: The views expressed in this piece are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the Editorial Policy of PakGazette.TV
Originally published in the news
