The definition of these new types of crime constitutes an important step in humanizing the conflict and ensure, that the fundamental rights of all Colombians are protected. It marks an important stage in the defense of life and dignity. As a necessary complement, the Colombian Penal Code characterizes, for the first time, the crimes of genocide, forced disappearance and forced displacement, acts that seriously jeopardize the safety and well-being of persons.
In addition, homicide, bodily harm, torture and sexual abuse of persons protected by international humanitarian law are defined as particular crimes. Sanctions are imposed for such crimes prohibited by international humanitarian law as the employment of illegal methods of warfare, treachery, acts of terrorism, barbaric acts, inhuman and degrading treatment, biological experiments, acts of racial discrimination, hostage-taking, illegal detention, acts of reprisal, and deprivation of due process.
Also characterized as particular crimes are the imposition of an obligation to provide support in hostilities, pillage on the battlefield, the omission of measures to provide urgent humanitarian assistance or the hindering of them, the destruction of medical supplies or installations, the destruction or use of cultural objects and places of worship, attacks against works or installations containing dangerous materials, reprisals, deportation, expulsion or forced displacement of population, attacks against means of subsistence, devastation, the omission of measures to protect the civilian population, illegal enlistment, the imposition of arbitrary levies or contributions, and the destruction of the environment.
With the aim of ensuring that the final text of the law was legally consistent and in keeping with the international parameters established in this field since the Nuremberg Trials, the National Government asked the plenary sessions of Congress, through the mechanism of presidential objection, to carry out a new study on the subject of crimes against international humanitarian law. This was motivated by the fact that, in the area, the Statute of the International Criminal Court fails to make a distinction between combatant and public servant. Such a distinction was not made in the International Red Cross of Colombia’s preparatory document. Furthermore, one objective was to ensure that the sections relating to sexual crimes against protected persons were more technically worded.
With regard to individual criminal responsibility, in the incrimination
and penalization structures employed in Section II of the Penal Code, no
distinction is made between criminal behavior engaged in during an international
conflict, and that engaged in during an internal one. This is in close
harmony with the most recent international conceptual elaborations in this
area of criminal jurisprudence. The Penal Code is to be credited with a
significant advance in criminal jurisprudence, represented by the principle
that the gravity and substance of such acts make those who engage in them
into hostis generi humanis, irrespective of whether the hostilities in
which the crimes are committed involve one country or several of them.
