Oosterveld, Valerie --- "Crimes against humanity" [2016] ELECD 1514; in de Brouwer, Anne-Marie; Smeulers, Alette (eds), "The Elgar Companion to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 110

Book Title: The Elgar Companion to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Editor(s): de Brouwer, Anne-Marie; Smeulers, Alette

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784711696

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Crimes against humanity

Author(s): Oosterveld, Valerie

Number of pages: 30

Abstract/Description:

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is most well-known for its development of the crime of genocide. However, the ICTR has also created a valuable legacy within international criminal law through its consideration of crimes against humanity, in two main ways. First, the ICTR has developed a distinct understanding of its chapeau or contextual elements. This was necessary because the ICTR’s threshold differs from that of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Under the ICTY’s chapeau, that tribunal has the power to prosecute persons responsible for the enumerated offences ‘when committed in armed conflict, whether international or internal in character, and directed against any civilian population’. In contrast, the ICTR’s chapeau provides the power to prosecute persons responsible for the enumerated acts ‘when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population on national, ethnic, racial or religious grounds’. While the reference to the civilian population came from the Nuremberg Charter, and the removal of any required link to an armed conflict reflects Control Council Law No. 10, the addition of the reference to discriminatory grounds did not have precedent and has been critiqued. David Scheffer, an American representative involved in the drafting of the ICTR’s Statute indicates that the added reference to ‘national ethnic, racial or religious grounds’ stemmed from a request by Rwanda, which ‘wanted to stress the purpose behind the crimes against humanity [provision] and align that purpose as closely as possible with genocide’.