Sierra Leone
Practice Relating to Rule 37. Open Towns and Non-Defended Localities
Sierra Leone’s Instructor Manual (2007) defines non-defended localities as “areas left undefended in order to protect them and their inhabitants from damage and injury”.
Sierra Leone’s Geneva Conventions Act (2012) states:
2. Grave breaches of the [1949 Geneva] Conventions and the [1977] First [Additional] Protocol.
(1) A person of whatever nationality commits an offence if that person, whether within or outside Sierra Leone[,] commits, aids, abets or procures any other person to commit a grave breach specified in –
…
(e) … paragraph … 3 … of Article 85 of the First Protocol [on,
inter alia, the grave breach of making non-defended localities and demilitarized zones the object of attack].