Crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity (international law) | |
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Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as foreign nationals. Together with war crimes, genocide, and the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity are one of the core crimes of international criminal law and, like other crimes against international law, have no temporal or jurisdictional limitations on prosecution (where universal jurisdiction is recognised).
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Prosecutions
The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place during the Nuremberg trials against defeated leaders of Nazi Germany. Crimes against humanity have been prosecuted by other international courts (such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and the International Criminal Court) as well as by domestic courts. The law of crimes against humanity has primarily been developed as a result of the evolution of customary international law. Crimes against humanity are not codified in an international convention, so an international effort to establish such a treaty, led by the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, has been underway since 2008.
Eleven types
According to the Rome Statute, there are eleven types of crime that can be charged as a crime against humanity when "committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population": "murder; extermination; enslavement; deportation or forcible transfer of population; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law; torture; rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilisation, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity...; enforced disappearance...; the crime of apartheid; other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health."
Related Document
Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
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Document:ICC issues warrants of arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant | Statement | 21 November 2024 | Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC | The ICC found reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant each bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts; and for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population. |
Convicted of Crimes against humanity
Person | Born | Died | Nationality | Summary | Description |
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Friedrich Flick | 10 July 1883 | 20 July 1972 | Germany | Businessperson | Friedrich Flick was a German industrialist and convicted Nazi war criminal. After the war, he reconstituted his businesses, becoming the richest person in West Germany, and one of the richest people in the world, at the time of his death in 1972. |
References
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