Technique of war crimes regulation in the 1960 Criminal Code of the RSFSR

Abstract

The article analyses the technique of regulating war crimes in the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1960. The author notes the need for a retrospective analysis of the legislative technique of war crimes in order to consider this type of crime most holistically. Despite the existence of discussions in the theory of criminal law about the concept of legislative technique and the elements included in it, the author interprets legislative technique as a set of means and techniques used to give the content of legislative norms an appropriate form. This article also notes the need to distinguish the category of «war crimes» in the criminal legislation of the Russian Federation, as this term is widespread in international criminal law. The author attributes the following provisions of the Criminal Code to war crimes: Article 356 («Application of prohibited means and methods of warfare»), Article 357 («Genocide») and Article 359 («Menary»). The author conducts a comparative analysis of the legislative technique of the norms on criminal liability for war crimes of the current criminal legislation and criminal legislation of the Soviet period. From the analysis, some features of the technique of regulating war crimes of the Soviet period are revealed, namely: a) most of the elements of war crimes were designed using the casual reception of legislative equipment; b) the Soviet legislator used a direct way of presenting the norms without applying references; c) the note was used to build some formulations of war crimes, but did not This paper also examines a number of imperfections in the technique of regulating war crimes in the 1960 Criminal Code.