Crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity is part of international customary law, and is not currently recognized by a dedicated international treaty.[1] The concept was first used in 1915 by the Allied forces of World War I (then France, Great Britain and Russia) with regards to the mass killings of Armenians within the Ottoman Empire.[1]
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The 1998 Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court represents the current consensus on what characterizes crimes against humanity.[1][2] The statute defines crimes against humanity as consisting of three parts: a physical element, a contextual element, and a mental element.[1][2] The physical element consists of any of:[1][2]
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The contextual element is "when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population."[1][2] The mental element is "with knowledge of the attack."[1][2] Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not need to be linked to an armed conflict.[1]
The first prosecutions of crimes against humanity were made in 1945 during the Nuremberg trials following the culmination of World War II.[1] Other prosecutions have been made in connection with:
- Wars in the former-Yugoslavia[1]
- Rwandan Genocide[1]
- Civil war in Sierra Leone[3]
- Khmer Rouge[4]
See also
References
- Crimes Against Humanity United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect
- Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998)
- See the Wikipedia article on Special Court for Sierra Leone.
- See the Wikipedia article on Khmer Rouge Tribunal.