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EspañolCRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
(Redirected from Crimes against humanity)
:''For the record label, see Crimes Against Humanity Records.''
In international law, a 'crime against humanity' consists of acts of persecution or any large scale atrocities against a body of people, as being the criminal offence above all others.[1]
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 are 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."[2]
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:
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: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.[3]
In the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals it was stated:
:The Tribunal therefore cannot 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, did not constitute war crimes, they were all committed in execution of, or in connection with, the aggressive war, and therefore constituted crimes against humanity.[4]
Main articles: Crime of 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.[5] The Charter of the United Nations (Article 13, 14, 15) makes actions of the General Assembly advisory to the Security Council.[6] In regard to apartheid, the UN General Assembly has not made any findings, nor have apartheid-related trials for crimes against humanity been conducted.
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. 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[7]:
::(a) Murder;
::(b) Extermination;
::(c) Enslavement;
::(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
::(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
::(f) Torture;
::(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
::(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
::(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
::(j) The crime of apartheid;
::(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
According to the Commentary on the Rome Statute:
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".[8] The resolution commits the Council to action to protect civilians in armed conflict.
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;"[9]
In the Explanatory Memorandum on this recommendation when considering paragraph 69:
:Reference should be made to the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal adopted in Rome in July 1998. Article 7 of the Statute defines rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity, as crimes against humanity. Furthermore, Article 8 of the Statute defines rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation or any other form of sexual violence as a serious breach of the Geneva Conventions and as war crimes.[10]
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, would not 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, i.e. 'a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population'".[11]
★ The Interpreter, a film about a character apparently 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 Seven personnel, chosen to secretly apprehend, try, and execute offenders for complying with Cylon control during the events on New Caprica.
★ Nuremberg Principles
★ International crime
★ Command responsibility
★ Historical revisionism (negationism)
★ War crimes
★ Genocide
★ Mass murder
★ Democide
★ Ethnic cleansing
★ ''Völkerstrafgesetzbuch''
★ Crime of apartheid
★ Council of Europe
★ Charter of the United Nations
★
★ William A. Schabas, ''Genocide in International Law: The Crimes of Crimes'', Cambridge University Press, 2000,
1. Crimes Against Humanity Cherif Bassiouni
2. As quoted by Guy Horton in ''Dying Alive - A Legal Assessment of Human Rights Violations in Burma'' April 2005, co-Funded by The Netherlands Ministry for Development Co-Operation. See section "12.52 Crimes against humanity", p. 201. He references RSICC/C, Vol. 1 p. 360
3. Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 1 Charter of the International Military Tribunal contained in the Avalon Project archive at Yale Law School
4. Judgement : The Law Relating to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity contained in the Avalon Project archive at Yale Law School
5. International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid dopted and opened for signature, ratification by General Assembly resolution 3068 (XXVIII) of 30 November 1973. Entry into force 18 July 1976, in accordance with article X (10)
6. http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html
7. Rome statute of the International Criminal Court Article 7: Crimes against humanity.
8. Resolution 1674 (2006)
9. Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe: Recommendation (2002) 5 Paragraph 69
10. Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe: Recommendation (2002) 5 Paragraph 100
11. Luis Moreno-Ocampo OTP letter to senders re Iraq 9 February 2006. Page 4
★ Crimes of War project
★ ''What is a Crime Against Humanity?'' - an online video.
:''For the record label, see Crimes Against Humanity Records.''
In international law, a 'crime against humanity' consists of acts of persecution or any large scale atrocities against a body of people, as being the criminal offence above all others.[1]
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 are 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."[2]
| Contents |
| First uses |
| Nuremberg trials |
| Apartheid |
| The International Criminal Court |
| UN Security Council responsibility |
| Council of Europe |
| Influence on the arts |
| See also |
| References |
| Footnotes |
| External links |
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:
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: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.[3]
In the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals it was stated:
:The Tribunal therefore cannot 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, did not constitute war crimes, they were all committed in execution of, or in connection with, the aggressive war, and therefore constituted crimes against humanity.[4]
Apartheid
Main articles: Crime of 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.[5] The Charter of the United Nations (Article 13, 14, 15) makes actions of the General Assembly advisory to the Security Council.[6] In regard to apartheid, the UN General Assembly has not made any findings, nor have apartheid-related trials for crimes against humanity been conducted.
The 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. 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[7]:
::(a) Murder;
::(b) Extermination;
::(c) Enslavement;
::(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
::(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
::(f) Torture;
::(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
::(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
::(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
::(j) The crime of apartheid;
::(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
According to the Commentary on the Rome Statute:
[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 are 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 are 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.
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".[8] The resolution commits the Council to action to protect civilians in armed conflict.
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;"[9]
In the Explanatory Memorandum on this recommendation when considering paragraph 69:
:Reference should be made to the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal adopted in Rome in July 1998. Article 7 of the Statute defines rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity, as crimes against humanity. Furthermore, Article 8 of the Statute defines rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation or any other form of sexual violence as a serious breach of the Geneva Conventions and as war crimes.[10]
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, would not 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, i.e. 'a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population'".[11]
Influence on the arts
★ The Interpreter, a film about a character apparently 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 Seven personnel, chosen to secretly apprehend, try, and execute offenders for complying with Cylon control during the events on New Caprica.
See also
★ Nuremberg Principles
★ International crime
★ Command responsibility
★ Historical revisionism (negationism)
★ War crimes
★ Genocide
★ Mass murder
★ Democide
★ Ethnic cleansing
★ ''Völkerstrafgesetzbuch''
★ Crime of apartheid
★ Council of Europe
★ Charter of the United Nations
★
References
★ William A. Schabas, ''Genocide in International Law: The Crimes of Crimes'', Cambridge University Press, 2000,
Footnotes
1. Crimes Against Humanity Cherif Bassiouni
2. As quoted by Guy Horton in ''Dying Alive - A Legal Assessment of Human Rights Violations in Burma'' April 2005, co-Funded by The Netherlands Ministry for Development Co-Operation. See section "12.52 Crimes against humanity", p. 201. He references RSICC/C, Vol. 1 p. 360
3. Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 1 Charter of the International Military Tribunal contained in the Avalon Project archive at Yale Law School
4. Judgement : The Law Relating to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity contained in the Avalon Project archive at Yale Law School
5. International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid dopted and opened for signature, ratification by General Assembly resolution 3068 (XXVIII) of 30 November 1973. Entry into force 18 July 1976, in accordance with article X (10)
6. http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html
7. Rome statute of the International Criminal Court Article 7: Crimes against humanity.
8. Resolution 1674 (2006)
9. Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe: Recommendation (2002) 5 Paragraph 69
10. Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe: Recommendation (2002) 5 Paragraph 100
11. Luis Moreno-Ocampo OTP letter to senders re Iraq 9 February 2006. Page 4
External links
★ Crimes of War project
★ ''What is a Crime Against Humanity?'' - an online video.
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