Crimes against humanity: concepts and signs

Abstract

The relevance of the article is obvious because the terrible crimes committed by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine shook not only Ukrainian society but also the whole world. Russian military personnel and their command commit large-scale and systematic attacks on the civilian population - brutal murders, torture, torture, rape, enslavement, extermination, deportations, imprisonment, the crime of apartheid and other illegal acts of a cruel nature directed against the people of Ukraine.
 The relevance of the study is also related to the fact that the Criminal Code of Ukraine (hereinafter - the Criminal Code of Ukraine) does not contain a definition of crimes against humanity, unlike other crimes such as military or war crimes. We will try to figure out how the actions of criminals will be qualified by Ukrainian courts and who will be held criminally responsible at the international level in the event that crimes against humanity are committed in Ukraine.
 «Crimes against humanity» as a separate group of crimes in international law was first reflected in the joint declaration of the governments of France, Great Britain and Russia on May 28, 1915 as a protest against the genocide committed by Turkey against the Armenian population. The result of the criminal events was the killing of more than a million people, prompting the international community to label this shameful act as a «crime against civilization and humanity» for which the leaders of the Turkish government should be held accountable.
 Crimes against humanity are crimes designed to destroy the very nature of man. These crimes are considered the most heinous crimes, because they mean deliberate mass killings either by the fact of the very existence of people (crimes against humanity) or by the fact of belonging to an ethnic or national group (genocide).
 In a number of international documents, such as: the Statute of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, article 6c; Charter of the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo, Article 5c; Law No. 10, adopted by the Control Council of the Allied Powers in Germany in 1945, Article II, 1c; UN Convention of December 9, 1948 on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide and its Punishment; Statutes of international criminal tribunals for Yugoslavia, Art. 3-5 and Rwanda Art. 2-3; Statute of the International Criminal Court, Art. 7, such international crimes as crimes against humanity are reflected, from this it follows that universal jurisdiction extends to crimes against humanity.