Everything about Crimes Against Humanity totally explained
In
international law, a
crime against humanity is an act of
persecution or any large scale atrocities against a body of people, and is the highest level of criminal offense.
The
Rome Statute Explanatory Memorandum states that crimes against humanity "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on
human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. However, murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they're part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances,
war crimes, but may fall short of falling into the category of crimes under discussion."
First uses
On
May 24,
1915, the Allied Powers, Britain, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing "a crime against humanity". An excerpt from this joint statement reads:
In view of these new crimes of [[Ottoman Empire |
Nuremberg trials
The
London Charter of the International Military Tribunal was the decree that set down the laws and procedures by which the post-
World War II Nuremberg trials were to be conducted. The charter defined that only crimes of the European
Axis Powers could be tried. Article 6 stated that the Tribunal was established for the trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries; paragraph 6.a defined
crimes against peace, 6.b
war crimes and paragraph 6.c,
Crimes Against Humanity defined as
.
In the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals it was also stated:
The Tribunal therefore can't make a general declaration that the acts before 1939 were crimes against humanity within the meaning of the Charter, but from the beginning of the war in 1939 war crimes were committed on a vast scale, which were also crimes against humanity; and insofar as the inhumane acts charged in the Indictment, and committed after the beginning of the war, didn't constitute war crimes, they were all committed in execution of, or in connection with, the aggressive war, and therefore constituted crimes against humanity. |
Apartheid
The systematic persecution of one racial group by another, such as occurred during the
South African apartheid government, was recognized as a crime against humanity by the
United Nations General Assembly in 1976. The
Charter of the United Nations (Article 13, 14, 15) makes actions of the General Assembly advisory to the Security Council. In regard to apartheid, the UN General Assembly hasn't made any findings, nor have apartheid-related trials for crimes against humanity been conducted.
United Nations
The
United Nations has been primarily responsible for the prosecution of crimes against humanity since it was chartered in 1948. The UN has been where all modern prosecutions for crimes against humanity have occurred. The
International Criminal Court (ICC) was recently organized by the
Rome Statute and the UN has delegated several crimes against humanity cases to the ICC. Because these cases were referred to the ICC by the UN, the ICC has broad authority and jurisdiction for these cases. The ICC acting without a UN referral lacks the broad jurisdiction to prosecute crimes against humanity, and can't prosecute many cases, particularly if they occur outside of ICC-member nations. The most recent 2005 UN referral to the ICC of Darfur hasn't progressed well, according to many commentators. The first person to be handed over to the ICC was
Thomas Lubanga. His trial has still hasn't been completed. The ICC still is seeking
Joseph Kony. The UN hasn't referred any further crimes against humanity cases to the ICC since March 2005.
UN Security Council responsibility
UN Security Council Resolution 1674, adopted by the
United Nations Security Council on
28 April 2006, "reaffirms the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005
World Summit Outcome Document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity". The
resolution commits the Council to action to protect civilians in armed conflict.
International Criminal Court
In 2002, the
International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in
The Hague (Netherlands) and the
Rome Statute provides for the ICC to have jurisdiction over
genocide, crimes against humanity and
war crimes. The definition of what is a "crime against humanity" for ICC proceedings has significantly broadened from its original legal definition or that used by the UN, and Article 7 of the treaty stated that:
For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: » (a) [[Homicide |
The
Rome Statute Explanatory Memorandum states that crimes against humanity
are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. However, murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they're part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of meriting the stigma attaching to the category of crimes under discussion. On the other hand, an individual may be guilty of crimes against humanity even if he perpetrates one or two of the offences mentioned above, or engages in one such offence against only a few civilians, provided those offences are part of a consistent pattern of misbehavior by a number of persons linked to that offender (for example, because they engage in armed action on the same side or because they're parties to a common plan or for any similar reason.) Consequently when one or more individuals are not accused of planning or carrying out a policy of inhumanity, but simply of perpetrating specific atrocities or vicious acts, in order to determine whether the necessary threshold is met one should use the following test: one ought to look at these atrocities or acts in their context and verify whether they may be regarded as part of an overall policy or a consistent pattern of an inhumanity, or whether they instead constitute isolated or sporadic acts of cruelty and wickedness. |
Council of Europe
The
Committee of Ministers of the
Council of Europe on
30 April 2002 issued a recommendation to the member states, on the protection of women against violence. In the section "Additional measures concerning violence in conflict and post-conflict situations", states in paragraph 69 that member states should: "penalise rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity as an intolerable violation of human rights, as crimes against humanity and, when committed in the context of an armed conflict, as war crimes;"
In the Explanatory Memorandum on this recommendation when considering paragraph 69:
Reference should be made to the [[Rome Statute |
To fall under the Rome Statute, a crime against humanity which is defined in Article 7.1 must be "part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population". Article 7.2.a states "For the purpose of paragraph 1: "Attack directed against any civilian population means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack." This means that an individual crime on its own, or even a number of such crimes, wouldn't fall under the Rome Statute unless they were the result of a State policy or an organizational policy. This was confirmed by
Luis Moreno-Ocampo in an open letter publishing his conclusions about allegations of crimes committed during the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 which might fall under the
ICC. In a section entitled "Allegations concerning Genocide and Crimes against Humanity" he states that "the available information provided no reasonable indicia of the required elements for a crime against humanity, for example 'a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population'".
Influence on the arts
The Interpreter, a film about a character allegedly based on Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe seeking to avoid indictment by the UN Security Council for trial before the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity.
In Season/Day 4 of 24, a FOX Television Series, the Secretary of Defense, James Heller (William Devane) was captured by a terrorist cell in order to be tried for crimes against humanity.
In the Sci-Fi Channel series Battlestar Galactica, several military personnel were tried for crimes against humanity by an independent committee of Six personnel chosen to secretly apprehend, try and execute offenders for complying with Cylon control during the events on New Caprica.Further Information
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