NORMS AND PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AS AN OBJECT OF CRIMINAL AND LEGAL PROTECTION

The article is devoted to the identification of specific objects of crimes against peace, the security of mankind and the international legal order. The role of the norms of international humanitarian law and the provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, by definition of the category of war crimes, on the formation of criminal law norms stipulated by section XX of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is analyzed. The question of defining a species object in criminal law is quite debatable and has several fundamentally different views on its problems. The norms and principles of international humanitarian law are considered as a specific object of crimes against peace, the security of mankind and the international legal order and the identification of ways to improve domestic criminal legislation in this direction. Since the criminal legislation of Ukraine does not contain the category of war crimes, it is rather difficult to justify combining crimes against peace with crimes against the norms and principles of international humanitarian law governing the rules of armed conflict. In international law, these crimes are called “war crimes”, which are not subject to the statute of limitations for prosecution and should not go unpunished. Their prosecution should be ensured both by measures applied at the national level and by intensifying international cooperation. In this regard, there is an urgent need to bring national legislation on criminal liability with the norms and principles of international humanitarian law and the statute of the Rome International Criminal Court, which provides characteristics of war crimes. Thus, the norms and principles of international humanitarian law constitute a separate type of social relations, despite the common features that differ from social relations ensuring peace and peaceful coexistence of states, as well as crimes against the security of mankind. The opinion is expressed that in the near future responsibility for numerous violations of human rights and violations of the norms and principles of international humanitarian law committed in the context of the military conflict in the east of Ukraine will soon become the subject of due process of international and national institutions.