It Ought to Be a Crime: Criminalizing Human Rights Violations

Abstract

In this article we propose that distinctions between human rights violations and violations of humanitarian law are substantively groundless. Human beings are entitled to live their lives with dignity and security, entitled to their freedoms. There remain, however, practical problems: human rights law and humanitarian law are distinct traditions with their own separate venues for judicatory review. They are also different in the popular imagination. We suggest ways that these distinctions can be dissolved.