International Criminal Law

The term “international criminal law” is more often a useful way of describing those aspects of international law that are concerned with crimes having an international aspect. Although only a tiny number of criminal cases have an international element and they are often serious in nature.

A number of crimes against international law are created by treaty and convention. Some of these crimes are prosecuted before international courts and tribunals. But more difficult questions of jurisdiction arise when the issue is whether a person, natural or fictitious, can be prosecuted for breach of public international law in the municipal courts of the state in which an arrest is made.

Crimes against humanity are particularly offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. Murder, extermination, torture, rape and 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 falling into the category of crimes under discussion.

The Holodomor has been recognized as a crime against humanity by the European Parliament.

Crimes against peace, in international law, refer to planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing.

Colloquial definitions of war crime include violations of established protections of the laws of war, but also include failures to adhere to norms of procedure and rules of battle, such as attacking those displaying a peaceful flag of truce, or using that same flag as a ruse of war to mount an attack. Attacking enemy troops while they are being deployed by way of a parachute is not a war crime. War crimes include such acts as mistreatment of prisoners of war or civilians. War crimes are sometimes part of instances of mass murder and genocide though these crimes are more broadly covered under international humanitarian law described as crimes against humanity. War crimes are significant in international humanitarian law because it is an area where international tribunals have been convened.

Piracy is any illegal act of violence or detention committed on the high seas for privateends by a privateship against another ship. Warships of any state may board a foreign-registered ship on the high seas that is suspected of piracy. If it proves to be a private ship, it can be seized and those on board arrested of the warship.

Slavery is an even older practice, and is still with us today. Although there have been various treaties seeking to combat slavery, and it is now accepted that slavery is prohibited by customary international law.

Genocide defines as any acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. It is sometimes grouped together with crimes against humanity, and, like the latter, can be committed in peacetime as well as during an armed conflict. But what distinguished it from crimes against humanity is that the acts must be committed “with intent to destroy” a group, so putting it in a class of its own. Example: crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia against ethnic groups could be classified as genocide, and that most of the acts described as “ethnic cleaning” were rather crimes against humanity, such as forcible transfers of population. On the other hand, the mass murder in Rwanda in 1994 of the Hutu by the Tutsi was clearly genocide. Crimes against humanity may be seen as collectiveviolations of basic human rights, rather than those of an individual.

Transnational crimes refer to crime that takes place across national borders. The term “transnational” describes crimes that are not only international (that is, crimes that cross borders between countries), but crimes that by their nature involve border crossings as an essential part of the criminal activity. Transnational crimes also include crimes that take place in one country, but their consequences significantly affect another country. Examples of transnational crimes include the human trafficking, people smuggling, smuggling/trafficking of goods (such as arms trafficking and drug trafficking), sex slavery, and (non-domestic) terrorism. Transnational organized crime (TOC) refers specifically to transnational crime carried out by organized crime organizations.

4. Word study: Key Terms