How the present laws would have dealt with the Marley of Attack on Titan

In this article, the author describes on, how the present laws would have dealt with the war crimes of Marley in the Attack on Titan.

Spoiler Alert!

Do not read this, if you haven’t completed Season 3 of the Attack on Titan!

Go back!

Now let’s call it AOT for brevity and begin!

How AOT started?

AOT started with the narrative that the world is full of human-eating humongous humanoid creatures called Titans. Titan devours humans and there are some thousands of humans left; who have built tall and strong walls to protect themselves from the Titans. It was narrated that the humanity has perished beyond the walls! There are three rings of walls, within which the remaining humanity exists.

1. (Inner most wall) Wall Sina
2. (Middle wall) Wall Rose
3. (Outer most wall) Wall Maria

So as of now this seems simple. Right?

Titans eat humans and humans either fight titans or stay away from them! Cliché anime stuff. Right?

A Big NO!

Tragedy Begins!

For 100s of years, humans were safe from the Titans, all thanks to the walls!

Most of the titans used to be of 20 metres tall, while the walls were 50 metres tall!

However one day, a giant Titan appears (6o metres tall!). It appeared beyond the third outer wall (wall maria) and broke it.

All Titan entered into the outer territory and devoured most of the humans in that zone.

The protagonist of the show is Eren Yeager. Her mom was picked by a titan and devoured her, right before his eyes.

He takes the vow that, He will kill all the titans from the world!

Seems like the story has begun! Right?

A Big NO!

1st Plot Twist

Naturally, Eren inducted himself in the Scout Regiment. Scout Regiment directly deals and combat with the Titans! It was the only way Eren could ever combat the Titans.

Consequently, an opportunity arose and Eren had an opportunity to combat the Titans. During the combat, something happened and Eren transformed himself into a freaking TITAN! He transformed into a titan and started to kill other Titans.

Mind you that Titans do not have thinking capacity. The titan, Eren transformed into; had Eren’s intelligence. Let’s call Eren a Titan Shifter!

In order for a Titan shifter to become a Titan, he/she would need to inflict a bodily damages on themselves. In this case, Eren simply bite his hand, causing damage and transforming himself into a Titan.

A lot of drama happened afterward. However, lets jump to the other relevant information!

Moving Forward

Now its clear that in some case a human can transform into a titan and such titans are different from average mindless titan, thanks of its intelligence. However, as the story progress, we get to know that there are more titan shifters. In fact the titans who broke the outer wall leading to the tragedy were titan shifters.

Why humans would want to extinct the human race?

Whether can all humans transform into a titan?

At this stage we are full of questions.

Revelation of Truth

In the beginning of story; it was told that, all the secrets to Titans could be unveiled if one explore Eren’s house basement of the outer territory (Wall Maria).

However, Titans had their territory within Wall Maria. Eren and his comrades fought titans and went straight to his basement. There they found a diary and it had everything in it.

We came to know that, humans didn’t perish beyond the walls. The humans living within the walls are called as Eldians. The Edlians who are living within the walls resides in the mid of a small island called Paradis. They couldn’t go outside of wall because of roaming Titans. Therefore, they never knew the existence of outside world.

The people of Paradis never knew about Oceans, Mountains, Desert, etc!

It is then unveiled that, Eldians are of special race. Once injected by a special fluid, they transform into a mindless titan, who eats human. Additionally, there are other nine titan shifters as well, who have human intelligence. Most powerful titan shifter is the Founding Titan. Founding titan has the power to control all the Titans and people of Eldian race.

For 2000 years, Eldians ruled the world and terrorized humanity with their power. However, after certain time, one ruler of Eldian empire decided to give up on world domination and leave with other Eldians to the Paradis island. He left 8 Titan Shifters in the hand of Marley (Neighbouring country). He created three walls with huge mindless titans and with his power to manipulate eldians, he made them forget the past and manipulated them that, humanity perished beyond the walls.

However, Marley ended up having control on 7 Titan Shifters. One who couldn’t be controlled was the Attack Titan. He was Eren’s father who sneaked into the Paradis island and later gave his power to his son Eren Yeager.

What happened after the Eldian empire’s withdrawal?

King Fritz left Marley and took almost all Eldians to the Paradis Island. However, a few Eldians resided back in the Marley. Marley started the narrative that, it was the Marleyan force, which drove Eldian empire back to its place. The State created Intermittent Zone for remaining Eldians and made law that, they can’t leave the zone without prior permission.

The majoritarian population and the State started to abuse the remaining Eldians. Moreover, with the power of seven titan-shifters, the Marley started to dominate in various wars against different countries. Marley started to exploit the remaining Eldians.

1. They used Titan Shifters to take lead in War on behalf of Marley
2. They used to punish Edlians by injecting them with special fluid and transforming them into a mindless titan. Leaving them in the Paradis island. After 100s of years, the Paradis Island was full of mindless Titans (beyond walls).
3. They used Eldians as suicide squad, where they used to inject dozens to hundreds of Eldians with special fluid and using them as a bait in the war.

However, after 100s of years of exploiting Eldians in war; Marley realized that, it relied too much on Eldians. While other nation started to develop technology to counter the Titans.

In order to counter the power of Technology, it started to contemplate on attacking the Paradis Island and claim the Founding Titan. By claiming the Founding Titan, the Marley would be able to summon millions of mindless huge titans. Consequently, Marley sent three titan shifters to Paradis to breach the wall and claim the Founding Titan.

Laws for the Crimes that Marley committed!

Let’s assume that Marley is signatory of the below mentioned International laws:

Using Eldians as a suicide-squad in Wars

Let’s get this straight. The Titan shifters can go back to human form; however, once an Eldian is transformed into a mindless titan, he/she remains in that form till eternity or until someone chop off the titan’s neck! Therefore, calling them Suicide Squad makes sense. Right?

As can be seen in this picture; the Eldian soldiers are wearing the serum belt. Upon approaching the enemy bunker, they were supposed to get hit by a bullet and consequently, getting those serum in their blood. Upon transformation, there will be no going back. They will be titan till someone chops of their neck.

This comes under the extreme torture, which is inhumane and it is part and parcel of a biological experiments. As a result it causes great suffering! Considering all of these, it can said that, Marley breached the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949.

Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention:

(b) torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;
(c) wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;

Attacking the Paradis

Marley sent three titan shifters to breach the walls of Paradis Island and retrieve the founding titan. They were

1. Armored Titan, aka Reiner Braun
2. Colossal Titan, aka Boruto Hoover
3. Female Titan, aka Annie Leonhart

They breached the walls and consequently, a vast population was devoured by the mindless titans.

It was an intentional attacks against the civilian population. The walls were walls to protect the Eldians from the mindless titans. These walls were deliberately destroyed. This caused incidental loss of life and damage to civilian objects.

This act was a serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:

(a) intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;
(b) intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian
objects [or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which is not justified by military necessity;
(c) attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended;

Consequence of breaching the Geneva Convention

Marley clearly broke the Geneva Convention.

Now what would be the consequences?

Nothing, according to Carroll Bogert of Human Rights Watch. The Geneva Convention is a standard by which prisoners and civilians should be treated during a time of war. The document has no provisions for punishment, but violations can bring moral outrage and lead to trade sanctions or other kinds of economic reprisals against the offending government.

Conclusion

Hear me, all Subjects of Ymir. My name is Eren Yeager. I now speak to all the Subjects of Ymir, by way of the Founding Titan‘s power. Every wall on the island of Paradis has been unhardened. the Titans buried within them have begun to walk. My goal…is to protect the people of Paradis, who bore, and raised me. But the world desires the extinction of the people of Paradis. Over countless years, their hatred has grown beyond this island. They surely will not stop until they have killed every last one of our people. I reject their desire. The Titans of the Walls will trample and rumble all the lands beyond this island. Until the lives there… are eliminated from this world!

Eren Yeager (Founding Titan)

Interesting Read: How the present laws would have dealt with the Uchiha Massacre