Explanation:

• Recent context: An investigation by the United Nations human rights office reveals abuse of
prisoners of war by both sides in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
• The Geneva Conventions are a set of four treaties, formalised in 1949, and three additional protocols,
the first two of which were formalised in 1977 and the third in 2005, outlining the norms for combatant
behaviour during a war.
• The Conventions have been ratified by 196 states, including all UN member states. The three
Protocols have been ratified by 174, 169 and 79 states respectively. In 2019, perhaps anticipating the
possibility of its invading Ukraine in the near future, Russia withdrew its declaration under Article 90 of
Protocol 1. Hence statement 1 is correct.
• The Conventions codify widely accepted ethical and legal international standards for humanitarian
treatment of those impacted by any ongoing war. The focus of the Conventions is the treatment of noncombatants
and prisoners of war, and not the use of conventional or biological and chemical
weapons, the use of which is governed respectively by the Hague Conventions and the Geneva
Protocol. Hence statement 2 is correct.
o The First Geneva Convention protects wounded and sick soldiers on land during war.
o The Second Geneva Convention protects wounded, sick and shipwrecked military personnel at sea
during war.
o The Third Geneva Convention applies to prisoners of war, including a wide range of general
protections such as humane treatment, maintenance and equality across prisoners, conditions of
captivity, questioning and evacuation of prisoners, transit camps, food, clothing, medicines, hygiene
and the right to religious, intellectual, and physical activities of prisoners.
o The Fourth Geneva Convention protects civilians, including those in occupied territory.
• The Geneva Conventions provide for universal jurisdiction, as opposed to a more traditional (and
limited) territorial jurisdiction that was designed to respect the sovereignty of States over their citizens.
o The doctrine of universal jurisdiction is based on the notion that some crimes, such as genocide,
crimes against humanity, torture, and war crimes, are so exceptionally grave that they affect the
fundamental interests of the international community as a whole.
• Every State bound by the treaties is under the legal obligation to search for and prosecute those in its
territory suspected of committing such crimes, regardless of the nationality of the suspect or victim or of
the place where the act was allegedly committed.
• The International Criminal Court's founding treaty called the Rome Statute, grants the ICC
jurisdiction over four main crimes. Hence statement 3 is not correct. o First, the crime of genocide is characterized by the specific intent to destroy in whole or in part a
national, ethnic, racial, or religious group by killing its members or by other means: causing serious
bodily or mental harm to members of the group; etc.
o Second, the ICC can prosecute crimes against humanity, which are serious violations committed
as part of a large-scale attack against any civilian population. The 15 forms of crimes against
humanity listed in the Rome Statute include offenses such as murder, rape, imprisonment, enforced
disappearances, enslavement – particularly of women and children, sexual slavery, torture, apartheid,
and deportation.
o Third, war crimes which are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions in the context of armed
conflict and include, for instance, the use of child soldiers; the killing or torture of persons such as
civilians or prisoners of war; intentionally directing attacks against hospitals, historic monuments, or
buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes.
o Finally, the fourth crime falling within the ICC's jurisdiction is the crime of aggression. It is the
use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, integrity, or independence of another
State. The definition of this crime was adopted by amending the Rome Statute at the first Review
Conference of the Statute in Kampala, Uganda, in 2010.