Criminal Liability and Viral Homicide – Can it Be Prosecuted as a Crime against Humanity?

Abstract

Background: One of the current topics at the international level is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has changed the lives of all people globally and caused economic and human losses. In legal scientific discourse, there are repercussions. Methods: To uncover scientific knowledge and results, the authors apply qualitative research methods such as content analysis, the legal dogmatic method, and methods of induction and deduction. Essential tools that authors use in this research are primary legal texts of the International Criminal Court (ICC ) and other international treaties, as well as the case law of the ICC, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), ad hoc and internationalised and mixed (hybrid) tribunals, and secondary legal sources. Results and Conclusions: This paper is based on the hypothetical situation of the deliberate creation and spread of a pandemic that resulted in enormous human losses. The authors examine the central question, which is whether viral homicide could be prosecuted as a crime against humanity before the ICC. The authors conclude that existing provisions of Art. 7 of the Rome Statute could not be interpreted so broadly as to encompass viral homicide as a crime against humanity. Expanding the scope of Art. 7 of the Rome Statute to cover viral homicide would violate basic principles of criminal law such as nullum crimen sine lege and lex certa.