Closing the Impunity Gap: The Imperative for a Dedicated Convention on Crimes Against Humanity

Closing the Impunity Gap: The Imperative for a Dedicated Convention on Crimes Against Humanity

Abstract This article stresses the need for an institutional clause — here, the so-called ‘UN clause’ — in the future Convention on Crimes Against Humanity (CAH) that could link the collective dimension of the prevention of CAH with the Charter of the United Nations (UN). That clause, modelled after Article VIII of the Genocide Convention, should recognize the right of States Parties to call upon the competent UN organs to take action under the Charter for the prevention and suppression of CAH. This article elaborates three main arguments to that end: first, the implications of CAH on international peace and security justify the explicit recognition of the powers of UN organs regarding them; secondly, call upon UN organs is a form of fulfilling the obligation to prevent CAH in its collective dimension; and thirdly, the institutional clause gives a sense of unity in the struggle against international crimes. Since these issues are closely related with the responsibility to protect (R2P) concept, this article also explores the symbiotic relationship between the collective dimension of prevention of CAH — through the UN clause — and R2P.

The study is related to the crimes against humanity and the role of the ICC in reducing it, Sudan model. Problems of the study focus on the continued commission of crimes against humanity and the weak role of the International Criminal Court to stop these violations. The importance of the study is to understand the fundamental concepts of crimes against humanity and the role of the International Criminal Court in mitigating these crimes. The objectives of the study include clarifying the role and powers of the International Criminal Court in imposing penalties, the legal challenges it faces, and proposed solutions. The thematic boundaries of the study focus on the legal framework for contemporary crimes against humanity, while the geographical boundaries are centered on Sudan. The temporal boundaries address the knowledge of crimes against humanity committed in Sudan between 2003 and 2024. We utilized historical and analytical methods to describe and analyze crimes against humanity. The study consists of five sections discussing the concept and nature of crimes against humanity, the role of the International Criminal Court, including some legal precedents, challenges, and proposed solutions. The study concluded with several findings, the most significant being that military leaders and heads of state in military and dictatorial regimes are the most likely to commit crimes against humanity. Additionally, criminals often evade punishment due to the limitations imposed on the International Criminal Court. Key recommendations: Encourage countries to adopt democratic civilian governance systems and conduct criminal trials for all perpetrators of crimes against humanity, especially presidents and military leaders.

The article presents the results of a theoretical and empirical study of the peculiarities of attitudes towards crimes against humanity in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war.It is shown that political forgiveness involves collective reconciliation and exerts excessive pressure on victims.It is shown that politics and forgiveness are two independent phenomena, since the sphere of forgiveness is interpersonal relations, not political or legal relations.It is shown that true forgiveness cannot be a political act.The specifics of transitional justice policy with its extrajudicial institutions, such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, are analyzed.It is shown that truth and reconciliation commissions represent an alternative justice mechanism that aimed not at punishment, but at establishing the truth and providing opportunities for reconciliation.It is established that the inclusion of forgiveness in the sphere of politics distorts, devalues the meaning of true forgiveness, changes its main features, and abolishes its exceptional and unique character.It is shown that pardons after unfair trials and unconditional amnesties after crimes against humanity lead to the sacrifice of justice.The results of an empirical study are presented, in which male civilians (226 males: 119 young and 107 middle-aged) participated; female civilians (372 females: 198 young and 174 middle-aged); wives of active combatants (114 females: 58 young and 56 middle-aged); internally displaced female persons (226 females: 117 young and 109 middle-aged).The author's research questionnaire "Diagnostics of Attitudes to Forgiveness, Life, and Military-Political Events" was applied.It was found that the majority of respondents among civilian men and women, wives of active combatants, and internally displaced women believe that crimes against humanity are unforgivable.It was determined that the majority of respondents among civilian men and women, wives of active combatants, and internally displaced women have a negative attitude towards the idea of reconciliation with the invaders/enemies of Ukraine.

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The Republic of Sierra Leone has proposed amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to include, inter alia, provisions for the slave trade as a crime against humanity and has recommended that the General Assembly include the slave trade as an enumerated crime in the Draft articles on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity (CAH) (Draft articles). This declaration came nearly five years after Cardozo's Benjamin B Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic, on behalf of slavery crimes expert Patricia Viseur Sellers, sent commentaries to the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) to revise in a similar fashion the Draft articles. The Rome Statute creates a wide impunity gap by omitting the slave trade entirely as a war crime and crime against humanity and by including only those conflict-related slavery acts that include causing someone to engage in an act of a sexual nature. Specifically, the Rome Statute does not enumerate the slave trade or slavery under Article 8 as war crimes. It does not define the slave trade within the crime of enslavement under Article 7(g) as a crime against humanity or explicitly enumerate the slave trade within the context of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. War crimes conduct is not captured fully or explicitly under ICC jurisdiction because the Rome Statute sanctions only persons exercising powers attaching to the rights of ownership who also cause that person to engage in an act of a sexual nature. Crimes against humanity conduct also escapes legal sanction when perpetrators transport or otherwise engage in any slave trade acts without exercising powers attaching to the right of ownership over a person. Furthermore, the Rome Statute's bifurcation of enslavement and sexual slavery lead to non-factual, incomplete, and discriminatory results. Sexual slavery is enslavement; its separate enumeration as a crime against humanity has required some victims to prove additionally that they were caused to engage in an act of a sexual nature in violation of non-discrimination and others' slavery harms to escape legal characterization altogether.

Abstract Much discussion over Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine focuses on the inability to charge aggression. However, another approach might be available: charging this under the ICC crimes against humanity (CAH) residual clause. First proposed in 2010 by Benjamin Ferencz, who lamented the circumscribed reach of aggression under the ‘Kampala Compromise’, the proposal has met with scepticism, primarily given that textbook aggression targets military forces, not civilians. Yet, civilian populations disproportionately bear the brunt of the violence of modern aggression (often being its direct targets). Russia's 2022 invasion is but the most recent and compelling example. Thus, this article resuscitates Ferencz's proposal, arguing that Russian leaders could be charged with using illegal force as a CAH under the residual clause. This approach would have practical advantages: initiating aggression in the Kremlin links liability to Putin much more directly for killing Ukrainian civilians, and charging it as CAH opens human victims to ICC participation and reparations. There are theoretical advantages, too, with utilitarian/retributive objectives better satisfied. Moreover, Ferencz's approach is better than recently proposed alternatives: using aggression merely as a gravity/liability modes/sentencing enhancer or alleging breach of the right to self-determination as the residual clause gravamen (arguably creating problems with victim group identification).

Between 1983 and 1986, the Zimbabwean government deployed the 5th Brigade of the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) to the provinces of Matabeleland and Midlands in an operation known as Gukurahundi. The stated aim of the Brigade’s operation was to combat dissidents—armed groups of men, comprising former ZIPRA combatants who had deserted the ZNA alleging that they were being discriminated against and attacked within the ZNA. Also, there were allegations that some were even killed. Instead, the 5th Brigade committed heinous atrocities against civilians in the two provinces. Within six weeks of arriving in Matabeleland North, 2, 000 civilians had been killed. Thousands more were raped, tortured, enforcedly disappeared and their homesteads and property burnt and destroyed. In four years, an estimated 20, 000 people had been killed in an operation covering Matabeleland and Midlands. Despite being presented with documented evidence of atrocities, including through its own Chihambakwe Commission of Enquiry on the disturbances in Matabeleland, the government of Zimbabwe denied that its army had committed atrocities and refused to publish the Commission’s findings. A political settlement between ZANU and ZAPU in 1987 ended the atrocities. The perpetrators of atrocities were pardoned, and there was no accountability or justice for victims. This article examines the Gukurahundi atrocities and evaluates whether they meet the requirements of crimes against humanity (CAH) under international law. The article has three objectives. First, to provide an overview of crimes against humanity, including their origins and historical evolution and development. Second, to examine the contextual, physical and mental elements of CAH. Finally, to evaluate whether the Gukurahundi atrocities meet the legal requirements for the enumerated acts of crimes against humanity. The prohibition of CAH carries an international obligation to investigate, prosecute and punish the crimes. If the 5th Brigade is found to have committed CAH, the perpetrators are liable to be investigated, prosecuted and punished under international law.

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February 2022 is a new stage in the international armed conflict that has been ongoing since February 2014. This invasion has triggered a series of events and actions that have attracted the attention of specialists in various fields of law. Russia’s aggressive actions have been accompanied by an unprecedented scale of illegal deportation and displacement of civilians, including children. Over the past two years, these illegal actions have continued to this day with complete impunity. The Russian authorities claim that Ukrainian children leave for the territory of the Russian Federation voluntarily, although in reality they are restricted in their right to return and subjected to psychological coercion. The aggressor authorities manipulate the terms used in their public statements, which are false and misleading. The application of international humanitarian law on the protection of children’s rights in armed conflict aims to protect the most vulnerable population from the dangers, trauma and abuse associated with armed conflict. War and armed conflict create extremely difficult conditions for children, opening the door to ruthless violence, loss of parents, family separation, psychological trauma, forced exploitation and crimes against humanity. Children are victims of various forms of violence, such as sexual exploitation, recruitment into armed groups, use in hostilities, murder, starvation, robbery and other crimes. International humanitarian law establishes general rules for the protection of children’s rights as noncombatants, as well as special rules for their special protection, given their vulnerability. Every day, the Russian military violates all legal and moral norms on the protection of children. The international armed conflict in Ukraine is accompanied by the commission of numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity on the territory of our country, including illegal deportation or forced displacement of children, which, according to the Rome Statute, have no statute of limitations. Today, there is a problem of qualifying the deportation of children in its international legal dimension, taking into account the provisions of the Rome Statute. The need for proper qualification of the deportation of children as a war crime and a crime against humanity in domestic legislation is relevant for bringing perpetrators to criminal responsibility. This article analyses the features of these crimes in recent publications and brings the perpetrators to justice.

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On the criminal offenses in the field of cybernetics also includes those of a racist and xenophobic nature that are committed through computer systems. The provision of these offenses has come as a result of the implementation of the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime on the penalization of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems, ratified by the Albanian state through law no. 9262, dated 29.7. 2004 For the ratification of the Additional Protocol to the convention on cybercrime, for the criminalization of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems.

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DAMAGE TO THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT AS A SIGN OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

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In the article, the author traces the fates of individual dictators and analyses the norms of international law, laws of war, and national legislation, which should be applied to putin to stop his international terrorist activities and the wars he unleashed, to save the world from a “madman with a nuclear button”. The history of the last hundred years shows that dictators' fates, like their characters, are very similar, and they usually end their lives tragically. Based on the analysis of the criminal activities of moscow aggressor state current political leadership, the author argues that the irreversibility of the punishment for war crimes, crimes against humanity, terror and genocide and that putin will inevitably appear before the Hague International Military Tribunal and will be justly sentenced to life imprisonment. On the basis of the analysis carried out and the given factual circumstances, the author ascertains the purposeful, deliberate, and systematic criminal activities of the current political leadership of the russian aggressor state against Ukraine and the civilized world, which are carried out in the form of war crimes, crimes against humanity, terror and genocide. It is stated that to effectively neutralize these international terrorists as soon as possible and to prevent further harmful and irreversible consequences of their criminal activities, the civilized world society should immediately apply against them the irreversibility of punishment, which is determined by the norms of both international and national law.

Ругало Ю., аспірантка кафедри

THE PROBLEM OF PROSECUTION FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY COMMITTED IN UKRAINE IN THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN THE PRACTICE OF ICTR AND ICTY WITH A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON CRIMES IN UKRAINE IN THE CONTEXT OF ARMED CONFLICT

The objective of this journal article is to analyze as well as understand the scope of crimes that has been done by the recent Myanmar Juntas, specifically the crimes against humanity. It analyzes the determination of the crime based on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as well as the possible applicability's-applicability applicability’ towards the ICC. The article will analyze the Junta action of using the basis of unfair election to enact crimes against humanity and the mechanism to bring the Juntas towards the ICC, either by UNSC Referral or the ICC investigation. In addition, the writer has also used several basis as a way to deem the current Junta government as illegitimate as well as the need to enact the UNSC referral.