Why crimes against humanity are distinct from war crimes and genocide in international law.
Crimes against humanity are not limited to wartime or foreign victims. Unlike war crimes, they can occur during peace and be perpetrated by a state against its own citizens. While they are a core pillar of international criminal law, they remain uniquely difficult to prosecute due to a lack of codification.
The concept of crimes against humanity emerged from the need to address state-sanctioned atrocities that fell outside the traditional scope of war crimes. Historically, international law struggled to prosecute governments for abusing their own nationals, as such actions were often viewed as internal affairs. The Nuremberg trials in 1945–1946 served as a foundational moment, yet the definition used there was restricted: crimes against humanity had to be connected to war crimes or crimes against peace. This created a legal loophole for atrocities committed before 1939 or those not directly linked to an armed conflict.
Following Nuremberg, there was a fifty-year gap before the establishment of new international tribunals. The 1990s saw a shift with the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The ICTY revived the nexus between these crimes and armed conflict, while the ICTR broke that link entirely, requiring instead that acts be part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. Today, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides the most expansive list of acts—including murder, enslavement, torture, and sexual violence—that constitute such crimes.
Despite their gravity, crimes against humanity lack a comprehensive international treaty. While genocide and war crimes are widely codified, efforts to formalize a treaty for crimes against humanity have been ongoing since the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative launched in 2008. Legal scholars like M. Cherif Bassiouni argue these crimes are part of jus cogens—non-derogable rules of international law—yet the absence of a unified convention means definitions continue to vary across different jurisdictions and international texts. This legal ambiguity persists even as international bodies, such as the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea, continue to investigate ongoing state-sponsored atrocities.
The evolution of the term itself reflects its complex history. First attested in 1883 by George Washington Williams regarding slavery, it was later used in 1915 by Allied powers to describe Ottoman actions against Armenians. By 1948, the UN War Crimes Commission recognized these earlier events as precedents for the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. Today, the focus remains on closing the gap in international law to ensure that state policies of repression, such as those identified in North Korea, do not escape accountability.
Source: Crimes against humanity
