The Rimworlder's Pocket Guide to the Laws of War

A brief list of many of the laws of war, for purposes such as making the world's first Geneva-compliant colony or optimizing your colony for maximum war crimes. May be updated over time.

Keep in mind that the laws of war are really complicated, and this guide is probably not 100% accurate. Don't use this as a source on a history essay or as a pocket guide when you're drafted into WW3 (joke written in jan. 2020, if the passage of time would politely ♥♥♥♥ off please), or I will laugh at you when you get an awful grade/tried in the Hague. And of course, the UN is not going to send peacekeepers to your home for breaking the laws of war in Rimworld.

Now includes human rights and crimes against humanity!

Legal and Illegal Weaponry

The general protocol for weapons is "Do not cause unnecessary suffering". Weapons that cripple someone without killing are almost always a war crime, and weapons that slowly kill and painfully kill an enemy combatant are generally going to find their way onto the same list.

1) Chemical weapons are a war crime. These refer to gases that are poisonous or cause choking, as well as other weapons that use gases to kill. Mustard gas is an example. Crowd control gases such as tear gas are permitted, but only for domestic riot control.
In addition to being illegal to use, chemical weapons are also illegal to research, build, store, give, or sell to others.

2) Biological weapons are a war crime. This refers to microorganisms being used as a weapon of war, such as giving people blankets infected with smallpox or flinging plague victims into a city. They do not have to target humans, and weapons targeting animals or plants still qualify as biological weapons.
Like chemical weapons, they also cannot legally be researched, built, stored, given, or sold to others.

3) A weapon with non-metal fragments is a war crime. This means things such as plastic bullets or grenades which fire non-metal shrapnel. This is because there is no way to find the fragments easily, which causes unreasonable suffering to soldiers they are used against.

4) Anti-personnel land mines are a war crime... unless you're the United States, Russia, China, India, or one of 28 other UN member states. This was prohibited by the Ottawa Treaty, and Wikipedia has a nice little map on which countries did or did not sign this. That being said, those which did not sign often have other restrictions on what does or doesn't go.
An anti-personnel land mine is one which is designed to kill people rather than vehicles.

5) Incendiary weapons are a war crime... if there might be civilians in the area. An incendiary weapon is a thing which is primarily designed to start fires. An example of this is a flamethrower or white phosphorous.
If the weapon is napalm, it comes with the additional restriction of only being okay if the enemy is using plant cover to stay hidden.

6) Cluster munitions are a war crime. If it releases a large number of fragments for injuring people in a wide area, it's illegal. This is because they are rather good at killing innocent civilians and filling an area with unexploded ordnance, or UXOs.

7) Laser weapons are illegal... if they are used to blind people. This refers to laser weapons which are solely used to blind a combatant rather than kill them. If the laser weapon is mainly meant for murder but also sometimes causes blindness to its target in its attempts to kill them, it is perfectly legal.

8) "Weather warfare" is illegal... if it directly harms people. Weather warfare is changing the weather for the sake of warfare. If it does not directly harmful, it is allowed. This means that things such as increasing the rain to make travel difficult or clearing fog to prevent an enemy from hiding are both okay.

9) Poisoned weapons are illegal... for international conflict. This means coating your weapons in poison, poisoning water sources such as wells, or any other form of weapon whose main purpose is to poison people. Thanks to the efforts of the United States and Britain, it doesn't apply to weapons that just so happen to also poison like a nuclear bomb.

10) Environmental modification is illegal. This means that any technique to change the environment, such as a geo-weapon or such, is illegal if it has "widespread, long-lasting, or severe" effects. Widespread means that its effect is over an area of several hundred square kilometers, long-lasting means that it lasts for several months or more, and severe means it seriously or significantly disrupts or harms human life, nature, economic resources, or other things.

11) Suicide weapons are legal. There's no caveat, they are 100% legal under the laws of war. Suicide bombing civilians is a war crime because you're targeting civilians, not because of the suicide bomb. If a uniformed soldier uses a suicide bomb against other uniformed soldiers, that's completely legal under the Geneva Convention.

Illegal Weapons Part II: The TPNW

While technically not part of the Geneva Convention, many nations have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It prohibits the following:

1) Don't get, test, or even have nuclear weapons or nuclear explosives. You can't produce them, you can't research them, and you just generally can't get them. If you've already got a couple, get rid of them, because stockpiling them is also illegal.

2) Don't give nuclear weapons to anyone else. If you're getting rid of those nukes, you can't just sell them to your friendly neighbor.

3) Don't accept nuclear weapons from another nation. Don't even try to do it in some weird indirect way. "A friend gave it to me" is as valid an excuse for your colony getting nukes as it was for that guy who got detained by the school resource officer for bringing beer onto the bus while I was in middle school. I still have no clue how he thought that would work.

4) Don't even threaten to use them, much less actually go through with it.

5) Don't help your friends go against the treaty either.

6) Don't let your friends help you go against the treaty.

7) Don't let anyone else keep their nukes on your land.

You might be thinking "wait, but I live in a nuclear state, is my beautiful homeland committing war crimes?" The answer is almost certainly yes. It's not violating this treaty though, because not a single nuclear power on Earth bothered to actually show up. The countries this actually applies to are the green ones on this map:


Your colony can probably get away with breaking this one if you want, in other words. Also, an antigrain warhead probably doesn't fall under the banner of "nuclear weapon" anyways, so go wild with those.

Prisoners of War

A Prisoner of War is a captured lawful combatant. Lawful combatants are members of one of the two warring armed forces, and excludes medics and chaplains. They are legally allowed to fight in a war, and are entitled to become a POW if they surrender. A full list of what is or is not a lawful combatant is on this wikipedia page[en.wikipedia.org].

The following treatment of POWs is required:

1) The POWs must be treated in a humane fashion. They must be respected as human beings.

2) They are protected from all forms of violence and torture, including rape, as well as humiliating and degrading treatment.

3) They must be given the opportunity to inform their families and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of their capture.

4) They must be allowed to communicate with their relatives and within reason receive packages from them.

5) They must be given a sufficient amount of food, water, housing, and medical care. Your 1x2 rooms and raw meat aren't going to cut it, here.

6) They must be paid for any work that they do, and that work cannot be degrading or dangerous. They cannot be forced to work on anything related to the war.

7) They must be released shortly after the conflict ends.

8) They do not need to give any information outside of their name, age, and rank, and should not be compelled to do so.

Of course, these only apply to a legal combatant. While an illegal combatant is still to be given them until given a fair trial, afterwards they are subject to the enemy nation's full justice system.

Surrendering

1) Should someone make a clear intent that they want to surrender (putting up their hands, throwing away their weapons, raising a white flag, you know, things Rimworld enemies literally cannot do) it should be accepted.

2) There aren't conditional surrenders between soldiers. If you surrender you do not get terms.

3) Those who either surrender or are rendered unconscious or incapable of combat due to wounds or sickness are "hors de combat", meaning that attacking them is a war crime. Using Finish Off from Allow Tool makes Geneva cry.

4) If someone parachutes from a destroyed or damaged aircraft, they shouldn't be shot at on their way down. Technically speaking, a drop pod doesn't use a parachute. Just saying.

5) Someone who does parachute under those conditions should be given an opportunity to surrender before they're attacked, unless they're clearly doing some hostile act or another.

6) Faking a surrender or otherwise pretending to be hors de combat when you aren't is a war crime.

7) Declaring "no quarter", or that you aren't accepting surrender, is a war crime as well.

Other Parts of the Laws of War

1) Harm caused to civilians has to be proportional to the military gain of the operation or tactics harming them. Bombing a city to cripple industrial capabilities and destroy military bases within is acceptable, bombing a city as a fun afternoon activity or to get that blood lust mood bonus isn't.

2) Any non-combatants are also protected from violence, torture, and humiliation. They are also not allowed to be taken hostage, and using civilians as a human shield is frowned upon to say the least.

3) Pillaging, looting, terrorism, and reprisal against protected people and their property are all banned, alongside any form of collective punishment. You cannot shoot your POWs because one tried to break out, you cannot raze and loot a civilian target because some of the locals became insurgents, and so on.

4) In order to be a lawful combatant, soldiers must follow certain criteria. This includes having a uniform, being recognizable at a distance as being a combatant, and not committing war crimes.

5) Combatants need a commanding officer, unless the conflict was so sudden that one could not be chosen beforehand. This officer can be held accountable for any war crimes committed under their command.

6) It is illegal to attack doctors, hospital ships, or ambulances bearing several protected symbols.
These include:


The Red Cross



The Red Crescent



The Red Crystal (either with or without a Star of David in the centre)




It is required to be neutral while wearing or displaying any of these, and committing acts of war while doing so is itself a war crime and allows the wearer/displayer to be freely shot at.

7) It is illegal to shoot at people or vehicles flying a white flag, as it shows a desire to surrender or communicate with the enemy. As with the protected symbols, the wearer is required to act neutrally while wearing or displaying a white flag.

8) If a person is protected from the laws of war (such as a doctor or civilian), using them as a human shield or camouflage is a war crime.

9) Certain objects may not be attacked even when they'd normally be military targets, because they "contain dangerous forces" (that's the Geneva Convention's exact wording, as goofy as it sounds) and could cause massive amounts of harm if those forces were released. These include dams and nuclear power plants specifically, as well as another piece of infrastructure that is blocked automatically by Steam. You can't even attack close to them (ahem, Vladimir) if it risks damage that may compromise them. There's three big exceptions, however:
- The plant is being used in an unusual way that isn't the normal way it would be operated, and it's doing so to provide a large benefit to a military operation.
- The plant's electricity is regularly and directly used for military operations.
- Other military operations in the area lose their protections if they're also used regularly for direct military reasons.
In every one of these exceptions, risking damage to the plant is still only allowed if doing so is the only way. Civilians must be fully protected to the greatest extent possible while the attack is being carried out, and every precaution possible has to be taken to keep your guys from starting the next Chernobyl.

10) You can't hide your military objectives right by one of the aforementioned dangerous force containers, unless they're there to protect them and all their weapons are capable of defense and nothing more. Nothing more means that no, your punisher railgun from Rimatomics cannot be right next to the nuclear plant.

11) The previously mentioned objects should be marked with a special sign ("three bright orange circles placed on the same axis") so they can be clearly identified and therefore not bombed by accident. It's still illegal to attack an unmarked plant, however.

The sign looks like this:
There's not a specific shade of orange beyond "bright" or a specific length apart that the circles need to be.

Rome Statute (Crimes against Humanity)

There's not actually a list of "crimes against humanity" so much as a definition for "crime against humanity". This is also separate from war crimes, so the guide title is technically inaccurate now in the same way that your colony is technically Geneva Conventions compliant.

Something is a crime against humanity if it follows all three of these criteria:

PART 1: It has one of the following as a physical element:
Murder
Extermination
Enslavement
Deportation or Forcible Transfer of Population
Imprisonment
Torture
Grave Forms of Sexual Violence (yes that is the actual wording on the UN website)
Persecution
Enforced (((disappearances)))
Specifically Apartheid
Other inhumane acts

PART 2: It has to be in the context of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population. An individual soldier shooting a civilian is not a crime against humanity (although it is a war crime). A group of soldiers shooting other soldiers is not a crime against humanity. A group of soldiers shooting up a school, however, is a crime against humanity.

PART 3: Anyone being charged must have knowledge of the attack.

Simple intent is enough to get charged in anything except persecution, which also requires discriminatory intent. It can be against any group, but has to be over a large amount of people, large amount of area, or done methodically. Random, accidental, and isolated acts aren't crimes against humanity. It counts as a crime against humanity regardless of whether or not a war is going on.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

These are the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These are also not part of the laws of war, and the guide title is basically meaningless at this point. They also apply outside of war.

Article 1:
All human beings are free and equal in dignity or rights. Everyone is a person and you should act in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2:
Human rights apply to everyone regardless of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. While this sadly means human rights apply to the Empire DLC's nobility, it doesn't include "species". Just saying.

Article 3:
Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.

Article 4:
Slavery is not okay. Don't enslave people. Selling slaves isn't okay either.

Article 5:
Torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment/punishment are not okay and shouldn't be done.

Article 6:
You aren't allowed to legally say that a person isn't a person.

Article 7:
Everyone is equal under the law and can't be discriminated against, especially as applies to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Article 8:
Everyone has the right to be fairly repaid if their rights are violated.

Article 9:
You can't arbitrarily arrest people, you have to have a reason for that.

Article 10:
Everyone has a right to a fair trial for criminal charges.

Article 11:
Everyone is innocent until fairly proven guilty, and can only be punished based on the degree set at the time of the offense (if someone commits a crime, the punishment for the crime is raised, and then the person is sentenced, they're punished according to the original punishment rather than the new, higher punishment).

Article 12:
You can't arbitrarily mess with people's families, privacy (looking at you mister NSA agent, ♥♥♥♥ off please), home, or correspondence. You also can't arbitrarily attack people's honor and reputation. Everyone has a right to legal protection from this.

Article 13:
Everyone has a right to move around their own home nation, the right to live anywhere within that nation, the right to leave the nation they're in, and the right to return to their home nation.

Article 14:
Everyone has the right to asylum in another country unless the persecution is due to a non-political crime or an act contrary to the "purposes and principles of the United Nations".

Article 15:
Everyone has the right to a nationality, and can't be arbitrarily deprived of it or denied the right to change it.

Article 16:
Men and women of full age are allowed to marry regardless of their race, nationality, or religion. They have the right to found a family under the same circumstances. They have equal rights to marriage, during marriage, and at the end of marriage. Marriage requires free and full consent, and families are entitled to protection by the society and the State.

Article 17:
Everyone is allowed a right to property both on their own and in association with others. No one can be arbitrarily deprived of their property.

Article 18:
Everyone has the right to free thought, free conscience, and free religion. They can change their religion of belief, and manifest it as they wish in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It's not directly stated, but it is heavily implied that sacrificing nonbelievers to Cthulu is a violation of this.

Article 19:
Everyone has the right to hold an opinion without interference. They also have the right to seek, recieve, and impart information through any media and regardless of their location.

Article 20:
Everyone has the right to freedom of assembly and association, but that association cannot be compelled.

Article 21:
Everyone has the right to either direct participation in government or indirect participation through freely chosen representatives. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service, and the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government. This will is expressed through periodic and genuine elections with universal and equal suffrage and fair voting procedures. In other words, democracy is a human right.

Article 22:
Everyone has the right to social security and economic, social, and cultural rights needed for their dignity and free development as a person. See, it's a human right, now give me my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ free healthcare (insert current US president here).

Article 23:
Everyone has the right to work, a free choice in employment, a right to good work conditions, and protection against unemployment. Everyone must be paid equally without discrimination. Everyone has the right to fair payment. Everyone has the right to form and join trade unions.

Article 24:
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable working hours. Your Rimworld pawns really care about this article, so odds are you're already good here. Alternatively, your pyromaniac is about to set a chair on fire.

Article 25:
Everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate to the health and well-being of themselves and their families, including food, clothing, housing, medical care (oh ♥♥♥♥ that's actually a human right), necessary social services. They also have the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other circumstances beyond their control. You can't kill a pawn because they lost their leg, and not giving them clothes is right out.

Article 26:
Everyone has a right to education. This education should be free in at least the fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Higher education should be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. It should be directed to development of the human personality, strengthening respect for human rights, and promoting fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance, and friendship between all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. The UN has a scary number of provisions about "further the will of the UN" for an international peacekeeping body, not going to lie. Oh, also parents can choose the kind of education their children get.

Article 27:
Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of their community, and enjoy the benefits of art and science.

Article 28:
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order where these can be fully realized. Human rights crusade, let's go.

Article 29:
Everyone has duties to the community. When exercising these rights, everyone shall be subject only to limitations determined by the law solely for securing recognition of the rights and freedoms of other and meeting the requirements of morality, public order, and general welfare in a democratic society. These rights may in no way be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations (what the ♥♥♥♥? That sounds kind of evil-dictatorship-y).

Article 30:
Nothing in this Declaration can be interpreted as implying for any State, group, or person to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms in the declaration. In others words, this is the free space of Human Rights Violation Bingo.

Geneva on the Rimworld

"Ah-ha, but there is no Geneva convention on the Rimworld" says half this guide's comments.

The Geneva Convention is customary international law. Because it's already expected between states, the few dissenters are expected to also follow it regardless of whether or not they're signatories.

On the Rimworld, a lot of these provisions aren't followed. However, the Geneva Convention isn't a single customary law. Even before it was written, its components were often customary laws themselves, or established in smaller and older treaties. Afterwards, every provision followed by everyone became customary law as well. If you can reasonably expect everyone to do it, that's a customary law. A big non-war-crimes one is diplomatic immunity.

When the rest of the Rim follows conventions against weather warfare, your colony can be expected to do the same even if those Rimworlders also refuse to wear uniforms and regularly launch incendiary shells at each other.

Now, what if your colony signed the Geneva Conventions? As a signatory, it's expected to follow them as long as the enemy is applying them as well. It's not Geneva-compliant to firebomb tribals until they firebomb you. Geneva also applies even if only one side recognizes the war, and it applies in cases of occupying a signatory's territory.

Mods to "Avoid"

Here's several mods to increase Rimworld's war crime potential, increasing the challenge to create a Geneva-compliant colony or just adding more ways to make the Convention a suggestion:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=761421485
Yes, Allow Tool of all mods breaks the Laws of War. The Finish Off command only works on your hors de combat opponents. Breaking the Geneva Convention is quality of life on the Rimworld.
LAWS BROKEN: Attacks against Non-Combatants.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1693437813&searchtext=munitions
This mod adds a bunch of chemical and incendiary weapons. Basically everything but APDS, HEAT, and Mechanoid Shells hit some law or another.
LAWS BROKEN: Chemical Weapons, AP Land Mines, Incendiary Weapons, Cluster Munitions

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1786466855
It's harder to have less respect for your prisoners as human beings than this. That being said, that law does only apply to prisoners, and a shell filled with mutagenic nanomachines isn't quite a chemical weapon.. but all those new animals are going to be hell on the local ecosystem, making it environmental modification.
LAWS BROKEN: Environmental Modification, Humane Treatment for POWs, Degrading/Dangerous Work
Includes crimes against humanity (torture, other inhumane acts).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1845154007
Not only does this mod encourage using barrels of chemfuel as an incendiary weapon, it adds an extra landmine to make breaking conventions on anti-personnel explosives even easier. Its catapults are also on shaky ground, since 90kg chunks of slate launched 300 meters tend to give off quite a few non-metal fragments.
LAWS BROKEN: Non-Metal Fragments, AP Land Mines, Incendiary Weapons

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2062943477&searchtext=vanilla+power
This mod just added gas chambers. Yes, it is a crime against humanity to use them against your prisoners.
LAWS BROKEN: Chemical Weapons
Includes crimes against humanity (murder, torture)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2454918354
This mod includes tear gas, which is considered a chemical weapon when used against enemy combatants. It is allowed for domestic reasons, however, just in case you want to tear gas your own pawns.
LAWS BROKEN: Chemical Weapons

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2521176396
The Explosive Belt in this mod is illegal. Suicide bombs may be legal, but incendiary weapons aren't. Also, while the cross on the medic bag is the wrong color to be a protected symbol, the Battle Banner can be made white. If it's white, it's illegal to fly it without neutral intent.
LAWS BROKEN: Incendiary Weapons, Protected Symbols (White Flag)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2479560240
This one is a big one. Starting with the omni-tool, the Combat Drone and Incinerate are incendiary weapons, making them both illegal. In addition, Alliance colonies are filled with civilians, making it illegal to bomb them from a distance. As a nice bonus, those colonies will also break the laws of war themselves, as the armed civilians within them are most certainly illegal combatants.
LAWS BROKEN: Incendiary Weapons, Excessive Civilian Casualties

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2654846754
Many of the superpowers are rather illegal, such as the incendiary laser eyes and fireball. On top of that, Zealots are of course a huge violation of the regulations on POWs.
LAWS BROKEN: Chemical Weapons, Incendiary Weapons, Humane Treatment for POWs

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2059450213&searchtext=war+crimes+expanded
For how evil of a mod it is, this breaks a surprisingly small part of the Geneva Convention. Still, it's another way to not treat your prisoners humanely. For a colony trying to be Geneva compliant, however, it does add extra challenge. They may have arrived mutilated, but it's hardly adequate medical care to leave them that way if it's within your ability to fix.
In terms of crimes against humanity, the mod is literally designed to be crimes against humanity. The name is just a misnomer. This isn't about the Geneva Convention, it's about the Rome Statute.
LAWS BROKEN: Humane Treatment for POWs, Sufficient Medical Care for POWs
Includes crimes against humanity (murder, enslavement, torture, other inhumane acts).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1899474310&searchtext=prison+labor
Prison Labor is actually fairly Geneva compliant. As long as your prisoners aren't making guns or armor, you're following the Geneva Convention. Just make sure to treat them properly, set aside some silver to give to their home colony, and release them when the conflict is over, and your colony will remain in good standing with the laws of war even with its legion of slaves.
LAWS BROKEN: Payment for Work, Degrading/Dangerous Work, Work Related to War
Includes crimes against humanity (enslavement).

Thanks for reading!

If you're wondering about sources, most of this was from Wikipedia. That's generally a good place to find things if you're actually interested in the laws of war (or in anything really).

Don't commit too many war crimes!

Geneva Convention, more like Geneva Suggestion

I made the joke so you don't have to.

[tempest]

cant spell war without warcrime

[midnight3452]

thanks for the suggestions

[rafaxtar4]

Also I want to add, there is SO MUCH effort here. Good job dude! I read the whole thing and loved it

[rafaxtar4]

I might do a run where I try follow this.

[Sorta Nutty]

Naw, mate. It's the Geneva Checklist!

[downhillchaos]

thanks of making a list of mods to add to my game... I mean stay away from, silly autocorrect.

[Gamerhell]

"And of course, the UN is not going to send peacekeepers to your home for breaking the laws of war in Rimworld," well... about that...

[matthewd3911]

"Illegal Weapons Part II: The TPNW" should be renamed to "Illegal WeaponsPart II: Electric Boogaloo"

[Jurain]

Already had to learn to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at school and don't follow it, so your essay isn't going to stop me.

[MoViNg TaRgEt]

Thank you for this handy checklist, i will be sure not to miss a single war crime now