Human rights violations as crimes under international law

Abstract

In this thesis I examined three human rights violations, which are also crimes under international law, from an international criminal law perspective. In pursuance of this aim, I first analysed the concept of crimes under international law, the problems encountered in defining it, and I introduced a distinct criterion which could help identify and designate this concept in the near future. After a brief introduction on the subject of this work, I dealt with three crimes under international law in chronological order. The first group of crimes I considered are crimes against humanity which were prosecuted at the Nuremberg Trials, before the International Criminal Tribunals of Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and, like the other two crimes, will be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court. In this chapter I outlined the necessary requisites for the subsistence of crimes against humanity, including the way these requirements have changed by the evolution of international criminal law throughout the past years, and I have discussed each crime against humanity per se. In the chapter on genocide, I critically analysed the unchanged definition of genocide. I noted that the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda have contributed to reduce and suppress the lacunae that render the Genocide Convention a law which is enforced with considerable difficulty. I also highlighted recent developments in the conceptualization of genocide, including the notions of ethnic cleansing and mass rape. The last crime under international law I have studied is torture. Just as I have done with regard to genocide, I have considered the way domestic jurisdictions have combatted torture and I have critically analysed the definition of torture under international law, including problems of enforcement, and the way it has been interpreted by human rights courts. In the conclusion I summarised the main arguments of this thesis.