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As regards “acts contrary to the provisions of the present Convention other than
the grave breaches”, the obligations are even more general – the Contracting Parties
are only obliged to “take measures necessary for the suppression” of these not so
grave acts. The Additional Protocol I of 1977 (applicable to crimes committed in
international armed conflict) contains, in Article 88, just a little bit more specific
provisions for extradition and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters: paragraph
(1) of this article obliges the Contracting Parties to afford one another the greatest
measure of assistance in connection with criminal proceedings brought in respect of
grave breaches of both the Conventions and the Protocol; Article 88 paragraph (2)
provides that, subject to the rights and obligations established in the Conventions
(and in Article 85, paragraph 1 of the Protocol) and, when circumstances permit, the
Contracting Parties “shall cooperate in the matter of extradition” and “shall give due
consideration to the request of the State in whose territory the alleged offence has
occurred”. 7 The Second Additional Protocol, applicable to non-international armed
conflicts, does not contain even the above general provisions and, therefore, interstate
cooperation related to war crimes (and other breaches of international humanitarian
law) committed in non-international armed conflicts is not covered by any analogous,
even if rudimentary, legal framework. When compared to the content of the criminal
law conventions adopted recently, such as the United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime or the International Convention for the Protection
of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the framework for interstate cooperation
and extradition provided for in the Geneva Conventions and its Protocols appears
quite incomplete and outdated.
As regards crimes against humanity, the gap in the legal framework for interstate
cooperation is the widest and the most evident: to date, there is no international
convention providing for extradition or mutual legal assistance in criminal matters
with regard to these crimes. With the adoption of the Rome Statute in 1998, crimes
against humanity were finally defined in an international treaty. However, the Rome
Statute neither requires States Parties to adopt domestic legislation on crimes against
humanity nor provides a legal basis for interstate cooperation.8
With regard to the definitions of the crimes against humanity in national legal
orders of individual states, it is worth noting that, according to a study completed
in 2013, only cca 50 per cent of states – members of the United Nations (and cca
65 per cent of Rome Statute parties) have “some form of national legislation relating
7 Article 88, paragraph 3 adds that “The law of the High Contracting Party requested shall apply in all
cases. The provisions of the preceding paragraphs shall not, however, affect the obligations arising from
the provisions of any other treaty of a bilateral or multilateral nature which governs or will govern the
whole or part of the subject of mutual assistance in criminal matters.”
8 Leila N. Sadat, Douglas J. Pivnichny, Towards a New Global Treaty on Crimes Against Humanity,
EJIL: Talk!, 5 August 2014; available at
against-humanity (visited on 4 June 2015).