On April 7, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief as U.S. President Donald Trump announced a two-week cease-fire with Iran. Oil prices retreated and markets rallied rapidly on the news. But before the cease-fire was agreed, Trump engaged in an astounding rhetorical campaign in which, among other shocking things, he threatened to destroy Iran’s power plants and bridges.
A quick and only partial review: On March 21, Trump posted on his social media site that the United States would “obliterate their [Iran’s] various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST” if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. On March 30, he then threatened that if the Strait of Hormuz remained closed, the United States would be “blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!).”
On April 7, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief as U.S. President Donald Trump announced a two-week cease-fire with Iran. Oil prices retreated and markets rallied rapidly on the news. But before the cease-fire was agreed, Trump engaged in an astounding rhetorical campaign in which, among other shocking things, he threatened to destroy Iran’s power plants and bridges.
A quick and only partial review: On March 21, Trump posted on his social media site that the United States would “obliterate their [Iran’s] various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST” if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. On March 30, he then threatened that if the Strait of Hormuz remained closed, the United States would be “blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!).”
On April 2, he pledged that “Our Military . . . hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!” The same day, he crowed that “biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again — Much more to follow! IT IS TIME FOR IRAN TO MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, AND THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF WHAT STILL COULD BECOME A GREAT COUNTRY!” Then, on April 4, he warned that “Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them,” again referring to Iran.
These statements were widely—and rightly—condemned as threats to perpetrate war crimes. Yet Trump has not renounced them. What’s more, the U.S. Defense Department evidently developed a package of targets to attack, apparently to fulfill Trump’s directives. And some commentators have even argued that they were successful in achieving a cease-fire.
As a result, it remains important to understand the legal framework that prohibits the threatened attacks and the consequences of carrying them out for the United States and its service members.
The conduct of warfare is regulated by a special body of law known as “international humanitarian law” (IHL) or the “law of armed conflict.” IHL is comprised both of treaties—such as the famous 1949 Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, and the 1907 Fourth Hague Convention and its annex—and customary international humanitarian law. International armed conflicts—what are commonly thought of as wars—arise whenever one state (such as the United States) uses armed force against another state (such as Iran), irrespective of a declaration of war. They are, therefore, subject to IHL’s rules governing the conduct of hostilities.
IHL channels violence toward combatants or military objectives while protecting civilians from the depredations of warfare. That means that, while IHL authorizes the use of violence to bring about the rapid submission of the enemy, the means and methods of warfare are not unlimited.
Instead, among many other rules, armed forces are required to direct their attacks against enemy combatants and military objectives only, and they are prohibited from attacking civilians and civilian objects. Thus, as reflected in Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions (“API”), IHL requires attacking forces to exercise “constant care … to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects.” Likewise, API codifies the precautionary principle, which requires that, in planning attacks, militaries “do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects.”
In general, as captured by API, military objectives are things that “by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.” Anything that is not a military objective is a civilian object. There is no intermediate or indeterminate category under IHL.
Some things, such as tanks and aircraft carriers, are military objectives because of their intrinsically military nature or purpose. Other things, such as bridges and power plants, may be military objectives due to their purpose, location, or use. So, a seemingly civilian highway bridge—like the one in Karaj, Iran, that was destroyed by the United States on April 2—may be a military objective because, for example, an enemy armed force is using it to transport military equipment to or away from the front. Likewise, a power plant that provides electricity to civilians as well as air defense systems or other military facilities is a military objective.
But legally categorizing something as a military objective does not end the analysis of whether its destruction is lawful. Once a military objective is identified, the attacker must fulfill two additional obligations. First, the fundamental IHL principle of proportionality prohibits attacks where the expected harm to civilians would exceed the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the attack. Second, the precautionary principle also requires an attacking force to take “all feasible precautions” to minimize the harm to civilians resulting from the attack, including by providing an advance warning where feasible and choosing the munitions used with an eye to minimizing incidental harm.
Additionally, some types of objects—such as schools and hospitals as well as objects that are indispensable to the survival of the civilian population—are subject to additional protections. For example, in cases of doubt, schools are subject to a presumption that they are not used for military purposes, raising the threshold of certainty necessary to convert them into a targetable military objective. Hospitals are absolutely protected from attack unless they are used to commit acts that are harmful to attacking force, and only after a warning that provides a reasonable time for compliance is issued and goes unheeded.
Finally, objects that are indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, such as desalination plants in arid environments, are protected from attack for any reason—unless they are used exclusively to sustain the adversary’s armed forces or when they both directly support military operations and their destruction will not deprive the civilian population of drinking water.
If an attacker properly identifies a military objective, determines that the expected harm to civilians does not exceed the anticipated military advantage gained by the attack, and takes feasible precautions to minimize the harm to civilians, then it may be lawfully attacked. So, the U.S. strike on the Karaj bridge on April 2 may have been lawful. And going forward, a particular strike on a specific bridge or power plant could be lawful under IHL.
As with any body of law, not all violations of IHL are war crimes. Some simple or technical breaches of IHL are considered mere violations of the law. The state responsible for such a breach is liable for an internationally wrongful act and incurs a duty to repair it.
War crimes, on the other hand, represent serious breaches of IHL. They not only impose liability on the state responsible for the breach but also impose criminal responsibility on individual perpetrators. As in domestic law, criminal responsibility for war crimes requires both a culpable act (actus reus) and a culpable mind (mens rea). Thus, for an individual to be guilty of a war crime, they must both engage in conduct that seriously breaches IHL and do so with the requisite mindset necessary to incur criminal guilt.
IHL imposes on states a duty to investigate and prosecute alleged war crimes perpetrated by members of their armed forces. Enemy states may also prosecute alleged war crimes perpetrated by members of their adversaries’ armed forces—as the Allies did following World War II.
Finally, the most serious war crimes are considered grave breaches under the Geneva Conventions. Grave breaches include the willful killing of civilians, torture, and extensive and wanton destruction of property. All states are under a duty to investigate and prosecute alleged perpetrators found within their territory, or to extradite them to another state for prosecution.
Trump’s threat to destroy all Iranian bridges or all Iranian power plants would—if carried out—would likely amount to war crimes and even grave breaches.
The categorical destruction of all Iranian power plants and bridges, without consideration for how or if each one is used or contributes to Iranian military action, would almost certainly violate IHL’s fundamental requirement to distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects, constituting indiscriminate attacks on civilian objects. Taking Trump’s threatened blanket attack on Iranian bridges and power plants at face value, it would also violate IHL’s requirements for attackers to exercise constant care in distinguishing between military objectives and civilian objects. Similarly, an attack on every bridge or every power plant in Iran would at least raise real concerns that the requirement of proportionality was simply ignored.
These serious violations of IHL would rise to the level of war crimes, implicating individual criminal responsibility for the president, the secretary of defense, and service members throughout the chain of command involved in their planning and execution.
Moreover, given the breadth of the threatened campaign, the attacks would likely amount to wanton destruction of enemy property that is not justified by military necessity and unlawfully carried out—a grave breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. That would not just implicate criminal responsibility for the president, the secretary of defense, and service members involved in planning and executing the strikes—it would also expose them to the universal jurisdiction obligation embedded in the grave breaches regime.
And, because of the president’s public statements in advance of such attacks—and the period of time between his initial threat and any actualization of it—there would be little question of satisfying the requisite mens rea to make out a war crimes prosecution.
Although the legal consequences of Trump’s threatened campaign of war crimes may not worry him or Defense Secretary Hegseth, they should worry the service members throughout the chain of command. The people responsible for planning and executing attacks against all of Iran’s bridges and power plants would be exposed to potential prosecution in the United States under either the Uniform Code of Military Justice or the federal War Crimes Act.
Of course, both the defense secretary and the president could practically prevent the prosecution of these service members before courts martial or federal courts while they remain in office, and the president could pardon them to prevent any future prosecution. But the president’s pardon power stops at the water’s edge, and—as established at Nuremberg—his orders provide no immunity for those who follow them.
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