Only parts of human rights conventions apply during times of armed conflict, civil unrest, emergency, siege, or other extraordinary circumstances. At these times, governments have the right to restrict some human rights and freedoms. During these times, it is best to distinguish between human rights guaranteed during peacetime and international humanitarian laws that protect the "fundamental guarantees" agreed upon by treaties and conventions. The central international humanitarian law for times of tension is the Geneva Convention. Rules pertain to the wounded, sick, shipwrecked, prisoners of war, and civilians. During ambiguous periods between peace and war, and even during armed conflict, nongovernmental humanitarian groups play a critical role in bringing violations to light and pursuing redress. For over fifty years, since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II, the United Nations has attempted to set up an international tribunal (the International Criminal Court) to judge and punish crimes against humanity. Some progress has been made and ad hoc courts have looked into Yugoslavia and Rwanda war crimes. But, because of arguments about what constitutes a war crime and the fear of giving up national power to an international court, the process is not complete. It has been agreed that war crimes are not subject to statutory limitations. War crimes, in general, include genocide, rape, sexual slavery, enforced sterilization, conscripting children under the age of fifteen, intentional starvation of civilians, the use of civilians as human shields, and the use of weapons of mass destruction

Keywords

fundamental guarantees, nonderogable rights, international law, natural law, armed conflict, detention, prisoners of war, children, women, wounded and sick, civilians, noncombatants, Geneva Convention, Hague Conventions, international criminal tribunals, children, women, international humanitarian law, penal sanctions, statutory limitations, individual recourse, universal jurisdiction, international fact-finding commission, immunity, amnesty, International Criminal Court (ICC), genocide, crimes against humanity