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A crime against humanity is an act of persecution against a group so heinous as to warrant punishment under international law. The term was first used in the preamble of the Hague Convention of 1907, and subsequently used during the Nuremberg trials as a charge for actions such as the Holocaust which did not violate a specific treaty but were deemed to require punishment.
The term has been criticized for being extremely vague and for being politically defined. For example, Nazi attempts to eliminate certain ethnic groups are widely recognized as having been crimes against humanity, yet Soviet persecution of certain economic groups and systematic persecution of African people by the South African apartheid government are not.
In its Article 7, the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court in 2003 says:
- 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) Murder; (b) Extermination; (c) Enslavement; ... [1]
See also: Genocide, mass murder, war crime, crime against peaceA crime against peace in international law, consists of illegally starting a war. For committing this crime, the Nuremberg Tribunal sentenced a number of persons responsible for starting World War II. One consequence of this is that nations who are starti, state terrorismState terrorism is a controversial term that is separate from the more common term, State sponsored terrorism. State terrorism is defined by some as violence upon a national population committed by national governments or their proxies. State terrorism ca, ethnic cleansingThe term ethnic cleansing refers to various policies of forcibly removing people of another ethnic group. At one end of the spectrum, it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population transfer, while at the other it merges with depor, Nuremberg PrinciplesThe Nuremberg Principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitues a war crime. The document was created by necessity during the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II. The guidelines are as follows: Principle I ., and Rome Statute of the International Criminal CourtThe Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (or Rome Statute is the treaty which established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was opened for signature on July 17, 1998 and entered into force on July 1, 2002. Since it is a treaty that es.
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