CSO Toolkit
Supporting Ratification to the Starvation AmendmentWelcome to the CSO Toolkit for supporting ratification of the Starvation Amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The CSO Toolkit is designed specifically to aid global efforts to ensure that those responsible for humanitarian disasters, famine, and starvation, are held to account.
Prepared by Global Rights Compliance (GRC) and made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the CSO Toolkit is populated with purpose-made resources for civil society organisations (CSOs). It also provides easy access to other resources in GRC’s catalogue that may assist CSOs in their own advocacy activities—from grassroots level to the international stage.
Click to expand the headings below to find out more about the Starvation Amendment, the importance of ratification, and States’ obligations concerning the right to food, and keep scrolling to explore the CSO Toolkit.
What is the Starvation Amendment?
On 6 December 2019, the Assembly of States Parties to the ICC (ICC-ASP) adopted an amendment to Article 8 of the Rome Statute concerning the intentional starvation of civilians (Starvation Amendment).
The Starvation Amendment closes a loophole in the text of the Rome Statute and makes clear that it is a war crime to deliberately starve civilians in non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) and international armed conflicts (IACs) alike.
Background to the Starvation Amendment
Despite strong evidence that the starvation of civilians is prohibited under international law, prior to the amendment of the Rome Statute, the ICC only had the power to investigate and prosecute the use of starvation as a method of warfare against civilians in circumstances that amounted to ‘serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict’. For the many millions of civilians impacted each year by armed conflicts that are not of an international character, the legal framework of the ICC offered no such protection.
The discrepancy is inexplicable. It has no legal, logical, or moral basis. The accountability gap it creates is symbolic of a larger problem: despite the toll incurred each year by millions of civilians caught up in armed conflict, there has been a dearth of prosecutions for violations of their fundamental rights to adequate food, water, and basic necessities. The lack of attention to starvation crimes perpetuates this phenomenon.
To bridge the gap, in August 2019, the Government of Switzerland deposited with the United Nations Secretary-General a proposal to amend Article 8 of the Rome Statute. Switzerland proposed to include intentional starvation of civilians as a war crime when it occurs in the context of conflicts not of an international character, and noted that ‘starving civilians is already a war crime under the Rome Statute in international armed conflicts. However, the vast majority of contemporary armed conflicts are non-international in nature.’
The substance of the proposal accorded with international law including with the international humanitarian law (IHL) framework for the protection of civilians in conflict. It was also consistent with United Nations Security Council resolution 2417 (2018), which underlined that starvation as a method of warfare could amount to a war crime without distinguishing between IACs and NIACs.
Amendment of the Rome Statute to include Article 8(2)(e)(xix)
The ICC-ASP adopted Switzerland’s proposal by consensus. This was a remarkable accomplishment that signalled to those using starvation as a means of waging war that they cannot continue to act with impunity. The Starvation Amendment was adopted by Resolution ICC-ASP/18/Res.5, adding a new provision to the Rome Statute: Article 8(2)(e)(xix). The new provision provides for the war crime, in the contexts of NIACs, of:
Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies.
In addition, the following was inserted into the ICC Elements of Crimes:
- The perpetrator deprived civilians of objects indispensable to their survival.
- The perpetrator intended to starve civilians as a method of warfare.
- The conduct took place in the context of and was associated with an armed conflict not of an international character.
- The perpetrator was aware of factual circumstances that established the existence of an armed conflict.
By bringing starvation as a method of warfare in NIACs within reach of prosecution before the ICC, the ground-breaking achievement served as a crucial step towards closing the accountability gap created by the former distinction between IACs and NIACs. Removing the distinction between conflict designations also contributed to the coherence and harmonisation of the Rome Statute, to raising public awareness of the preventability of starvation, and to rendering deliberate starvation morally toxic.
Why is Ratification Important?
Widespread ratification is essential to ensuring that the Starvation Amendment can be incorporated into investigations and prosecutions when starvation as a war crime is perpetrated in NIACs.
Despite the Starvation Amendment having been approved and now forming part of the text of the Rome Statute, the new Article 8(2)(e)(xix) only applies to States Parties that have completed the ratification process and deposited the relevant instrument with the United Nations Secretary-General. As a result, the ICC does not have the power to initiate investigations or prosecutions of Article 8(2)(e)(xix) crimes committed on the territory of, or by nationals of, States Parties that have not yet ratified the Starvation Amendment.
In addition to ensuring that the Rome Statute system is robust and responsive to the perpetration of starvation as a war crime in non-international armed conflict, ratification helps to promote the prohibition on starvation as a weapon of war at the domestic level, and to enhance cooperation between States. Ratification also helps to strengthen the deterrent nature of international criminal law, sending a strong message that justice for victims will be pursued against perpetrators of starvation-related crimes.
Read more about the ratification and implementation of the Starvation Amendment in Sections 4.3 and 5 of GRC’s Ratification Guidebook.
Giving Effect to the Right to Food
CSOs play an active role in the global fight to eradicate hunger. From supporting the development of peacetime food and nutrition policies, to delivering humanitarian assistance to war-stricken communities, to advocating for development goals like Zero Hunger (Goal 2 of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals), they are a critical component of the networks working to realise the right to food across the globe. The pursuit of accountability for starvation crimes is intrinsically linked to these aims, and ratification of the Starvation Amendment is an important complement to existing efforts to eradicate suffering due to food insecurity.
Intentional starvation of civilians is increasingly recognised as a major cause of food insecurity globally. Recent years have seen an alarming reversal of the trend towards falling levels of global hunger, with evidence of man-made starvation deliberately used against civilians in Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Ukraine, to name just a few examples. Without concerted efforts to strengthen the accountability mechanisms for those who perpetrate starvation crimes, the fight to eradicate hunger is in serious peril. Ensuring that effective legal avenues exist to investigate and prosecute starvation crimes when they occur is essential to realising the right to food.
Most instances of starvation crimes occurring today arise in the context of NIACs. Ratification of the Starvation Amendment is therefore a crucial step in guaranteeing food security for future generations. Widespread ratification of the Starvation Amendment will strengthen the ICC’s ability to pursue justice for victims of starvation crimes. It will serve as a springboard for strengthening domestic accountability mechanisms to conform with the Rome Statute system. Ratification will also promote awareness around the significance of investigating and prosecuting starvation crimes at national, regional, and international levels.
Advocating for victims
From an advocacy perspective, ratification of the Starvation Amendment will assist CSOs to engage with States bilaterally and in regional and international fora on the impact of conflict and hunger on civilians.
Intentional starvation of civilians is a serious war crime worthy of international condemnation. Widespread ratification of the Starvation Amendment will help improve understanding of the link between food insecurity, the obstruction of humanitarian access, and prohibited conduct in war. It will strengthen the infrastructure available to the international community for addressing the root causes of conflict-driven starvation and can help to mobilise responses to starvation events.
By promoting understanding of the root causes of starvation through a victim-centric framework that understands intentional starvation as a man-made and morally repugnant phenomenon, ratification can help to focus international responses. The widespread criminalisation of intentional starvation in NIACs can help States to take preventative steps to call out and limit criminal conduct before it escalates, and to seek redress for victims when it occurs.
Protecting humanitarian relief
The Starvation Amendment recognises that access to humanitarian assistance is vital to ensuring the rights to adequate food, water and basic necessities indispensable for the life of civilian populations are respected during conflict. Amongst the acts criminalised within the definition of the crime of starvation under the Rome Statute, is willfully impeding humanitarian supplies.
Accordingly, widespread ratification creates an additional layer of legal protection for humanitarian organisations and CSOs working to provide relief to the most vulnerable during conflict. It condemns attacks against humanitarian workers and reinforces the illegality of obstructing humanitarian access or restricting civilians’ access to food, water and other basic humanitarian supplies.
Some CSOs, engaged in facilitating humanitarian aid, may be cautious about adopting the lexicon of starvation accountability. They may perceive framing starvation events through the lens of criminality risks compromising essential access, or the ability to negotiate delivery of critical aid and assistance necessary to alleviate widespread hunger in war-torn regions.
However, lending their voice to the call to States to ratify the Starvation Amendment need not compromise CSOs’ existing humanitarian efforts. Supporting ratification does not require CSOs to comment on the potential responsibility of warring parties for starvation in specific situations. It does, however, provide an opportunity for CSOs to engage with decision-makers on how to address one of the major obstacles to realising the right to food in the world today: intentional starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. Ratification provides hope that as collective understandings of the causes of hunger evolve, so too will the international community’s ability to implement robust legal frameworks to respond to these threats.
Advancing international law
By advocating for ratification of the Starvation Amendment, CSOs can help advance the normative values enshrined in international law.
Ratification not only encourages States to comply with existing international legal frameworks applicable to conflicts, but also strengthens the legal recourses for violations of international law.
Intentionally depriving civilian populations of basic necessities of life – the conduct at the core of the war crime of starvation – is an infringement of their rights derived from international human rights law. Where starvation occurs, potential violations include breaches of the rights to food, health, water and housing as well as the right to life of civilians. These rights have also long been reflected in the fundamental principles of IHL, which demand the protection of civilians and civilian objects.
The Starvation Amendment is an important example of how international criminal law can help to guarantee respect for fundamental human rights even in times of war, conflict, and insecurity. By advocating for its ratification, CSOs can help to advance these fundamental protections that are enshrined in international law, and squarely aligned with the normative values of the Starvation Amendment.
Underscoring international commitments
The Starvation Amendment underscores the international community’s commitments under resolution 2417 (2018), which emphasises the need to strengthen the protection of civilians in conflict and recognises the criminality of conflict-induced hunger. The resolution implores States to prevent, prohibit and hold to account those who commit the crime in international or non-international armed conflict. It also urges States to conduct proper investigations within their jurisdiction into the crime of starvation, including the unlawful denial of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population in armed conflict, and to take action against those responsible in accordance with domestic and international law.
By way of United Nations Security Council resolution 2573 (2021), the Council reiterated its condemnation of the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and condemned the unlawful denial, deprivation and misuse of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. It urged warring parties to respect civilian infrastructure and humanitarian aid, and demanded parties to conflicts facilitate the safe, unhindered and sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance and the provision of related services by impartial humanitarian actors.
Ratification of the Starvation Amendment by States would therefore further the international obligations of States and should form an important component of advocacy movement and lobbying on conflict-related hunger on both legal and policy fronts. CSOs with existing advocacy networks in spaces such as humanitarian relief, human rights, international justice and international development are well-placed to support the call for ratification of the Starvation Amendment.
For further information on the prohibition of starvation-related conduct and the intersection between the war crime of intentional starvation of civilians and international human rights law, see Factsheet #1: The Prohibition on Starvation as a Method of Warfare and Factsheet #3: The War Crime of Starvation and the Right to Food Under International Human Rights Law, respectively.
For more information, see starvationaccountability.org/content/legal-policy/
Downloads: The CSO Toolkit
GRC’s CSO Toolkit contains a collection of Model Letters, Talking Points and Factsheets in multiple languages. Click to find out more and download the materials.
Factsheets
The starvation of civilians as a method of warfare has long historical roots. It is a unique and devastating crime that targets victims indiscriminately and disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable portions of society.
Although prosecutions for starvation-related crimes have been lacking, an international legal prohibition on the practice is long-standing and widely accepted. States also have positive obligations under international law to ensure that the right to food is respected by all.
The following Fact Sheets provide a snapshot of these issues. They can be used to support CSO’s advocacy activities as they are, or their content can be incorporated into targeted messaging. View the Fact Sheets [available in English, French and Spanish] to find out more about the use of starvation as a weapon of war and the prohibition on intentional starvation.
Download:
Factsheet#1: The Prohibition of Starvation as a Method of Warfare
Factsheet #2: Understanding Starvation: A Manmade Phenomenon
Factsheet#3 The War Crime of Starvation and the Right to Food Under International Human Rights Law
Model Letters
Ratification can only occur with the support of relevant actors on the national stage. While the precise roles as well as their scope and contours are dependent upon the constitutions, laws, and conventions in place in each State, the success or failure of the ratification process will inevitably be determined by parliamentarians and executive government.
Members of parliament can show their support for the Starvation Amendment and help to facilitate ratification across a range of functions—as lawmakers, in exercising supervisory powers, and as advocates for change in their own right. Executive government is likewise essential for successful ratification, as such processes are often led by Ministries of Foreign Affairs or Ministries of Justice (or their equivalents).
The following Model Letters have been prepared to help CSOs advocate for ratification of the Starvation Amendment in their own States. They can be amended and supplemented as appropriate to fit the relevant national context.
Download:
Model Letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs
Model Letter to Minister of Justice
Model Letter to Member of Parliament
CSO Talking Points
GRC’s CSO Talking Points are designed to support CSOs advocating to combat food insecurity, increase access to humanitarian relief, and pursue accountability for civilian victims of conflict. They are specifically intended to help CSOs advocate for ratification of the Starvation Amendment.
Download:
CSO Talking Points
Factsheet#3 The War Crime of Starvation and the Right to Food Under International Human Rights Law
The prohibition on starvation as a deliberate method of warfare is closely interlinked with efforts to promote fundamental human rights including the right to food. This Factsheet provides an overview of the interrelationship between the guarantees to adequate food and freedom from hunger under International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and the war crime of deliberate starvation of civilians.
CSO Talking Points
GRC's CSO Talking Points are designed to support CSOs advocating to combat food insecurity, increase access to humanitarian relief, and pursue accountability for civilian victims of conflict. They are specifically intended to help CSOs advocate for ratification of the Starvation Amendment.
Factsheet #1: Prohibition of Starvation as a Method of Warfare
This Factsheet provides an overview of the prohibition of intentional starvation of civilians as a method of warfare under international law. It considers two important bodies of public international law: (a) international humanitarian law (the body of law that defines the rules for parties to armed conflict which, for humanitarian reasons, seeks to limit the effects of armed conflict on civilians); and (b) international criminal law (the body of law that seeks to prohibit the commission of serious atrocities and hold perpetrators to account for their individual criminal responsibility).
Factsheet #2: Understanding Starvation: A Manmade Phenomenon
Today, every instance of famine or acute food insecurity is, at its core, man-made. This Factsheet explores the phenomenon of starvation and explores starvation-related conduct, explores those most vulnerable to starvation, and common myths about starvation including in a multi-causal environment.
Other Resources
Ratification Guidebook
Prepared by GRC with the support of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of the Swiss Federation, the Guidebook: Ratifying and Implementing the Starvation Amendment to the Rome Statute is a key, standalone resource about the Starvation Amendment and how best to achieve its ratification and implementation.
The Guidebook is available in English, French and Spanish.
Ratification Portal
GRC’s Ratification Portal is a digital platform that serves as a centralised resource on the ratification and implementation of the Starvation Amendment. CSOs, States, researchers, and practitioners interested in the Starvation Amendment and strengthening accountability for starvation crimes can access the Ratification Portal here.
About GRC
GRC possesses unrivalled global expertise and granular knowledge on the crime of starvation and right to food violations, derived from a dedicated starvation portfolio established in 2017.
GRC collaborated directly with the Swiss Federation throughout 2019 to actively support the Starvation Amendment in the context of its ‘Accountability for Mass Starvation: Testing the limits of the law’ project, in conjunction with the World Peace Foundation and generously supported by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. GRC is privileged to have worked alongside the Netherlands and Switzerland on these issues, who tirelessly and deftly achieved a remarkable international consensus at a time of historical division. GRC continues to actively support ratification of the Rome Statute amendment and legislative harmonisation across States Parties, ensuring that the ICC Rome Statute regime is not fragmented.
For more information about ‘Accountability for Mass Starvation: UNSC 2417 Implementation Mechanisms’ or GRC’s starvation work to date, please visit GRC’s starvation project page at www.starvationaccountability.org, or contact our team of experts at starvationaccountability@globalrightscompliance.co.uk.