Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, it is prohibited to remove or to carry out individual or mass forcible transfers of protected persons from the occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, regardless of the motive for such removal/transfer. There are good reasons for considering – and the jurisprudence of international criminal tribunals and the ICC Statute have recognized – that this prohibition applies equally to forcible transfers within an occupied territory. In international armed conflicts, such removals/transfers constitute war crimes. In non-international armed conflicts, there is a broader, and more general prohibition against forced movement of civilians, unless their security or imperative military reasons so demand.
See Protected persons; Occupation; War crimes; Non-international armed conflict; Transfer;
OUTLINE
Chapter 8, a) protection by IHL - prohiibition of population displacements
Chapter 8, 8. a) Deportations + b) Transfer of the occupying power's own population
LEGAL SOURCEs
of own population to occupied territory
of protected persons from occupied territory
of nationals of Occupying Power who have sought refuge in occupied territory
DOCUMENT
ICRC, Sixtieth Anniversary of the Geneva Conventions
ICRC Appeals on the Near East (Parts B. and C., Para. 5)
Switzerland, Prohibition of Deportations from Israeli Occupied Territories
Georgia/Russia: Tbilisi Nervously Eyes Russia’s Border Barricade of South Ossetia
CASES
Israel, Cases Concerning Deportation Orders
ICJ/Israel, Separation Wall/Security Fence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (part A., Paras. 120 and 135)
Israel, Ajuri v. IDF Commander (Paras. 20-22)
Israel, Ayub v. Minister of Defence
UN, Resolutions and Conference on Respect for the Fourth Convention (Parts A., B & F)
Israel/Lebanon/Hezbollah, Conflict in 2006 (Part I, Paras. 199-208)
ICRC/South Lebanon, Closure of Insar Camp
Eritrea/Ethiopia, Awards on Occupation (Part A., Para. 54)
Sri Lanka, Conflict in the Vanni (Paras. 3-9)
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Constitution of Safe Areas in 1992-1993
Georgia/Russia, Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in South Ossetia (Paras. 120-125)
India, Rev. Mons. Monteiro v. State of Goa
The Conflict in Western Sahara (part A.)
Libya, Report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2014/15)
Myanmar, Forced Population Movements
Iraq, Forced displacement and deliberate destruction
Iraq: Situation of Internally Displaced Persons
In non-international armed conflicts
OUTLINE
LEGAL SOURCEs
CASES
Sudan, Report of the UN Commission of Enquiry on Darfur (Paras. 226 and 328)
Sri Lanka, Conflict in the Vanni
Case Study, Armed Conflicts in the former Yugoslavia (9, 30 and 36)
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Constitution of Safe Areas in 1992-1993
Case Study, Armed Conflicts in the Great Lakes Region (part II. A.)
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RESOURCES
Suggested readings:
ABEBE Allehone Mulugeta, “Displacement of Civilians during Armed Conflict in the Light of the Case Law of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission”, in Leiden Journal of International Humanitarian Law, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2009, pp. 823-851. DINSTEIN Yoram, “The Israel Supreme Court and the Law of Belligerent Occupation: Deportations”, in IYHR, Vol. 23, 1993, pp. 1-26. LAPIDOTH Ruth, “The Expulsion of Civilians from Areas which Came under Israeli Control in 1967: Some Legal Issues”, in EJIL, Vol. 1, 1991, pp. 97-109. MANGALA Jack M., “Préventions des déplacements forcés de population – possibilités et limites”, in IRRC, No. 844, December 2001, pp. 1067-1095. PLATTNER Denise, “The Protection of Displaced Persons in Non-International Armed Conflicts”, in IRRC, No. 291, November-December 1992, 13 pp. SHERRY Virginia N., Persona Non Grata: The Expulsion of Lebanese Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon, New York, Human Rights Watch, 1999, 83 pp., http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/lebanon. WILMS Jan, “Without Order, Anything Goes?: The Prohibition of Forced Displacement in Non- International Armed Conflict”, in IRRC, Vol. 91, No. 875, September 2009, pp. 547-575.