A threat to commit war crimes? Why Trump’s new warning to Iran has shocked world

With this, many fear that Trump, along with his high-ranking officials, seems to be supporting serious war crimes under international law.Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said that intentionally attacking civilian infrastructure such as power plants is generally prohibited under international law.“Intentionally attacking civilian infrastructure such as power plants is generally prohibited. Even in the limited cases that they qualify as military targets, a party still cannot attack power plants if this may cause disproportionate harm to civilians,” she told the Guardian.According to the report, the principle was underlined in 2024 when the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russia’s former defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian general Valery Gerasimov, who were accused of directing widespread attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure and causing excessive harm to civilians.Sarah Yager, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, told the Guardian that crippling Iran’s power plants would be “devastating to the Iranian people,” cutting electricity to hospitals, water supplies, and other vital civilian services. She added: “The US military has protocols to constrain such harm, but when the president speaks this way, it risks signaling that those constraints are optional, making this moment especially dangerous.”International law allows attacks on energy plants or other civilian targets only if they primarily support military activity. Tom Dannenbaum, professor at Stanford Law School, said Trump’s statements suggested otherwise. “The reference to the ‘stone age’ indicates objects would be targeted simply because they support modern society in Iran, which has nothing to do with military contribution—the necessary condition for lawful targeting in war,” he explained.Additionally, more than 100 US experts in international law from universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the University of California, on Thursday said that conduct of US forces and statements by senior US officials “raise serious concerns about violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes.”The letter, published on the website of the policy journal Just Security, flagged Trump’s comment last month that the US may conduct strikes on Iran “just for fun.” It also cited comments by the Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, who told reporters that the US did not fight with “stupid rules of engagement.”The experts also said they were “seriously concerned about strikes that have hit schools, health facilities, and homes,” noting an attack on a school in Tehran on the first day of the war that killed more than 160 children and teachers.Determining what qualifies as a civilian object and how to apply proportionality when striking civilian objects that serve military purposes are among the most complex issues in international humanitarian law.Under Article 52 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1977, “civilian objects,” such as infrastructure, are defined by what they are not: military objectives whose destruction offers no clear military advantage.Central to this is the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants. Rule 10 of customary international humanitarian law—applicable in both international and internal armed conflicts—states: “Civilian objects are protected against attack, unless and for such time as they are military objectives.”This principle imposes obligations on all parties: attackers must avoid targeting civilian objects, and defending parties must avoid placing military assets among civilians. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court explicitly criminalizes intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects that are not military targets.Even when a civilian object is deemed a military target, international law requires balancing potential harm to the civilian population. Since World War II, these protections have become increasingly precise, but the US and its allies have previously carried out controversial attacks on civilian infrastructure, including Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War and Serbian power plants.