Iraq
Practice Relating to Rule 89. Violence to Life
Iraq’s Law of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (2005) identifies the “[w]ilful killing” of protected persons as a grave breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
The Law further characterizes “[u]se of violence against life and persons, in particular killing of all kinds” and “the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all recognized and indispensable judicial guarantees” as war crimes in any armed conflict when “committed against persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed
hors de combat by sickness, injury, detention or any other cause”.
In 2012, in its Report on Iraqi Children After 2003, the Ministry of Human Rights of Iraq stated:
After the collapse of the dictatorial regime and consequent collapse of state institutions and the continuation of military operations and resulting suffering of children [from] displacement, murder, kidnapping and trafficking[,] among other practices[,] which are a product of wars and bloody conflicts[,] … children and women … are among such vulnerable groups that are least capable to provide protection for themselves.