Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic criminal acts which are committed by or on behalf of a de facto authority, usually by or on behalf of a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the context of wars, and they apply to widespread practices rather than acts which are committed by individuals. Although crimes against humanity apply to acts which are committed by or on behalf of authorities, they do not need to be part of an official policy, and they only need to be tolerated by authorities. The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place during the Nuremberg trials. Initially considered for legal use, widely in international law, following the Holocaust, a global standard of human rights was articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Political groups or states that violate or incite violations of human rights norms, as they are listed in the Declaration, are expressions of the political pathologies which are associated with crimes against humanity.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of November 2019, 123 states are party to the statute. Among other things, it establishes court function, jurisdiction and structure.
The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime".
Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni was an Egyptian-American emeritus professor of law at DePaul University, where he taught from 1964 to 2012. He served in numerous United Nations positions and served as the consultant to the US Department of State and Justice on many projects. He was a founding member of the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University which was established in 1990. He served as president from 1990 to 1997 and then as president emeritus. Bassiouni is often referred to by the media as "the Godfather of International Criminal Law" and a "war crimes expert". As such, he served on the Steering Committee for The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, which was launched to study the need for a comprehensive convention on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, and draft a proposed treaty. He spearheaded the drafting of the proposed convention, which as of 2014 is being debated at the International Law Commission.
David Michael Crane is an American lawyer who was the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) from April 2002 until July 15, 2005. During his tenure, he indicted, among others, the then-President of Liberia, Charles Taylor. Crane was replaced as chief prosecutor by his deputy Desmond de Silva. On April 26, 2012, the SCSL, sitting in The Hague, convicted Taylor on various charges. Crane served as Professor of Practice at Syracuse University College of Law from 2006 until 2018.
International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetration. The core crimes under international law are genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni is an Argentine judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, elected in 2016. He served as a member of the Supreme Court of Argentina from 2003 until 2015, when he resigned due to age restrictions to hold the position.
Andrew Fois is an attorney who serves as the chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States since 2022. He served as the deputy attorney general for public safety in the Office of the Attorney General in Washington, D.C. from April 9, 2012 to March 2015. He was awarded the Edmund Randolph Award, the Justice Department's highest honor for distinguished service.
Gregory H. Stanton is the former Research Professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at the George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. He is best known for his work in the area of genocide studies. He is the founder and president of Genocide Watch, the founder and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project, and the Chair of the Alliance Against Genocide. From 2007 to 2009 he was the president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
The American Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC) leads the civil society movement for full United States participation in the International Criminal Court.
Claudio Mauricio Grossman Guiloff is a lawyer and law professor. From 1995 until the summer of 2016, he served as dean of the Washington College of Law of American University in Washington, D.C. He continues to teach at the Washington College of Law and serve as Dean Emeritus.
Michael P. Scharf is co-dean, Joseph C. Hostetler – BakerHostetler professor of law, and the director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Scharf is also co-founder of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), a non-governmental organization (NGO) which provides pro bono legal assistance to developing states and states in transition. Since 1995 PILPG has provided pro bono legal assistance to states and governments involved in peace negotiations, drafting post-conflict constitutions, and prosecuting war criminals. Since March 2012, Scharf has also been the producer and host of Talking Foreign Policy, a one-hour radio program aired on a quarterly basis on Cleveland’s NPR affiliate WCPN 90.3 ideastream.
Kevin K. Washburn is an American law professor, former dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, and current Dean of the University of Iowa College of Law. He served in the administration of President Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior from 2012 to 2016. Washburn has also been a federal prosecutor, a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, and the General Counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission. Washburn is a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, a federally-recognized Native American tribe.
Kimberly Prost is a Canadian judge on the International Criminal Court. She was elected to a nine-year term on December 8, 2017 and assumed full-time duty on March 9, 2018.
Fatou Bom Bensouda is a Gambian lawyer and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who has served as the Gambian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom since 3 August 2022.
The Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law, established in 2000 as the Institute for Global Legal Studies, serves as a center for instruction and research in international and comparative law.
Steven W. Hawkins is an American social justice leader and litigator who currently serves as president and CEO of the US Cannabis Council. He previously served as executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project and as executive director of Amnesty International USA. Prior to these roles, he served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Program Officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He also held position as executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, as senior program manager at Justice, Equality, Human Dignity and Tolerance Foundation, and as program executive at Atlantic Philanthropies and as an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Hawkins is known for bringing litigation that led to the release of three teenagers wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death row in Tennessee.
David L. Bosco is an American journalist, author and academic who writes on the subject of international relations with a focus on the United Nations. Currently, he is a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine and associate professor at Indiana University.
The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative is a rule of law research and advocacy project of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. Started in 2008 by Professor Leila Nadya Sadat, the Initiative has as its goals the study of the need for a comprehensive international convention on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, the analysis of the necessary elements of such a convention, and the drafting of a proposed treaty. To date, the Initiative has held several experts' meetings and conferences, published a Proposed Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity, and resulted in the publication of an edited volume, Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity, by Cambridge University Press. The draft treaty is now available in seven languages. The UN International Law Commission produced its own, similar, set of Draft Articles on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity, and a proposed treaty is now being debated by governments around the world.
Mark Steven Ellis is an international criminal law expert and the executive director of the International Bar Association. He is the current chair of the UN-created Advisory Panel on Matters Relating to Defence Counsel of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals.
