| Summary: | International humanitarian law, international criminal law and international human rights law all
share the common goal of seeking to regulate the behavior of international actors in relation to
the three most serious offences under international law - genocide, war crimes and crimes
against humanity. International legal rules, processes and institutions within these three areas of
law represent the international community's ongoing quest to address and prevent the
commission of these crimes - to create "a more humane world under law." International law has
therefore been relied upon as the primary - arguably exclusive - mechanism for prescribing rules
of conduct and for enforcing prescribed rules.
It is clear, however, that the legal framework alone has not been able to bridge the gap between
internationally agreed standards and substantive practice on the part of international actors. That
international law comprises only a partial solution to the problem of human rights atrocities is
well recognized. It is argued here that the international community's preoccupation with
international law as the means for regulating State and individual behavior in this area has in fact
contributed to continuing problems of non-compliance as much as it has assisted in engendering
compliance with the law. In other words, law is as much a part of the problem as it is a part of
the solution.
It is argued that the international community must look beyond the law, to non-traditional,
informal influences operating alongside the law, in order to move towards the goal of effective
enforcement of the law prohibiting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Based on
Constructivist thinking, four key strategies - departures from traditional Positivist-Realist
conceptions of the international legal system - are suggested as focal points for enhancing
compliance with the laws in this area, these being: active differentiation between the target
subjects of the law; utilization of the dual power of international humanitarian law; employing
social norms and ethical values as motivations for compliance with the law; and embracing the
informal compliance-inducing activities and powers of non-state actors. Applying these
strategies to the humanitarian law enforcement project, a reversal of traditional perceptions of
the influence of ethics and law in relation to individual and State target subjects respectively, is
proposed as a future direction for enhancing compliance and furthering the prevention project in
relation to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. === Law, Peter A. Allard School of === Graduate
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