HOW DO WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY DIFFER FROM GENOCIDE?

War Crime, Crime Against Humanity, and Genocide are all inherited parts of the domestic legislation where a state wishes to contest individuals for cruelty committed during the conflicts. The legal concepts related to violence during the decade covered by this article followed by the list on the general standard classification of the events or categories of incidents referred to and penalties on them.

It states that the large percentage of the most severe cases mentioned in the study relate to the various abuse of human rights or International Humanitarian Law that can represent war crimes and crimes against humanity and sometimes together.

In this article, we will be discussing all of the three terms in brief. So, let's have a look at it.

What are War Crimes?

War crimes are banned, whether internationally or internally armed, in which an individual can be held criminally accountable. The definition describes both "Serious Infringements" of The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and 1977 Protocol I and other severe breaches of war rules and customs committed in either non-international or national violent war. A non-exhaustive scope of such acts is included in the Rome Statute of 1998 for a permanent ICC (International Criminal Court).

Until July 1, 2002, the court will have authority over people for war crimes, genocide, and the war against humanity committed after the Statue's inception. The following is the list of war crimes in internal armed conflicts as per ICC.

• Mutilation, torture, murder, and cruel treatment.
• Uptake of hostages.
• Denial of equal access to trial;
• Deliberately aiming attacks on the civilians.
• Population or individual citizens that do not engage directly in hostilities.
• The pillaging of a city or a place.
• Other acts of sexual abuse and committing rape.
• Ordering the relocation of the civilized population unless needed for their defense or imperative military purposes, etc.
• Planning of attacks against civilized objects intentionally, in short, attacks against those objects which are not military objects.  

Nearly all of the violent attacks that have been registered since 1996 came under the spectrum of armed conflict, whether they have domestic or foreign classification. 'The duration and severity of the violent events mentioned, and the clear degree of coordination of the parties concerned, may contribute to the inference that this was an internal war, with few exceptions, and not just domestic disruptions, conflicts, or acts of crime.

In summary, the vast majority of the violent events referred to in this article are the product of military conflicts. If proved in criminal trials, war crimes are deemed to be significant violations of international humanitarian law.

What are crimes against humanity?

Crimes against humanity are forbidden activities performed in an extended or systematic way against civilians either in peacetime or at the time of war. However, one of the same factual realities would also lead to war crimes and a crime against humanity. The most significant distinction for humankind is the widespread or systematic attitude of crimes against the society of which the individual action must be a component.

As per the ICC, the following comes under the category of crimes against humanity:

• Deportation
• Forceful Disappearances
• Extermination
• Murder
• Torture
• Another type of sexual abuse inclusive of rape
• Enslavement

Many of the attacks mentioned above were targeted at non-combatant civilian communities, primarily children and women. As a result, the large number of violent actions committed during such years, which were part of separate waves of reprisal attacks and policies of repression and persecution of refugees, were all commonly transposed into a sequence of extensive and systematic attacks on civilian communities and may be identified by a court of competent jurisdiction as crimes against humanity.

What is the Crime of Genocide?

According to the Convention held in 1948 on The Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the term "Genocide" means any of the below-listed acts conducted to destroy partially or wholly, a national, a racial, religious, or ethnical group, like:

• Killing group members
• Causing severe bodily or emotional injury to the party members.
• Deliberately imposing the group circumstances of determined life to bring about its physical damage partially or wholly.
• Imposing steps aimed to discourage births in groups.
• Transferring children from one group into another group by coercion

The Convention specifies that the "involvement in genocide" and "try to commit genocide" are not only punishable by acts of genocide itself but also the "active and public obscenity to commit genocide," "planning to commit genocide," "collaboration for doing genocide," and "trial to committing genocide." The apparent aim is to kill an identifiable group "in whole or in part" that separates the offense of genocide from a crime.

Penalties for war crimes, genocides, and a crime against humanity

The penalty applicable for all the criminal acts of war crimes, genocides, or crimes against humanity ranges from ten to thirty years of imprisonment.

Final Words – How do "Crimes against Humanity" and "War Crimes" differ from "Genocide"?

All of the three terms have been discussed briefly in the above part of the write-up. However, the same factual condition that gives rise to allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity may very well give rise to an argument that genocide has been committed. The only distinction is that those achieved with a definite intent to kill representatives of a particular group are creating genocide. Such a motive is generally challenging to prove. That's why allegations of genocide are usually more complicated to pursue than accusations under international law for other crimes.

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