Elements of crimes against humanity in the recent case law of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda

• Main Author: Abdulhafidh, Ali
• Published: University of East Anglia 2011
• Subjects: 340
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.539345

This thesis will try to explore general and specific elements of crimes against humanity under the recent case law of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The general elements of crimes against humanity will be discussed in Part 2 of this thesis, and Part 3 discusses the specific elements of the enumerated acts: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, persecution, and other inhumane acts. Before these, this thesis, in Part I, traces the history of crimes against humanity, which began before the Nuremberg Charter and has continued up to the present time. Finally this thesis concludes that all that is required under the recent case law is that crimes against humanity must be committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, together with knowledge of that attack. This thesis also concludes that each and every inhumane act has specific elements which must be proved in order for it to be described as a crime against humanity.