International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a permanent international court that tries individuals for certain exceptionally serious international crimes, rather than determining the responsibility of states. Its subject-matter jurisdiction under Article 5 of the Rome Statute covers four crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. Each has distinct legal elements, so not every human-rights violation or unlawful use of force falls within these categories.

Genocide

Genocide requires an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such. This specific intent distinguishes genocide from other crimes involving mass violence.

• The prohibited acts are killing group members; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction; imposing measures intended to prevent births; and forcibly transferring children to another group.
• Genocide can occur in either peacetime or wartime.

Crimes against humanity

Crimes against humanity are specified acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, with knowledge of the attack. The requirement is widespread or systematic, not necessarily both.

• The acts include murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer, torture, specified forms of sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearance, apartheid and other qualifying inhumane acts.
• An attack here means a course of conduct involving multiple prohibited acts pursuant to or in furtherance of a state or organisational policy; it need not be a military attack.
• These crimes do not require a connection with an armed conflict.

War crimes

War crimes comprise grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other specified serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflict. They require a connection with an armed conflict, whether international or non-international, subject to the applicable statutory provisions.

• Examples include intentionally attacking civilians, torture, taking hostages and using children under fifteen to participate actively in hostilities.
• Internal disturbances, riots and isolated or sporadic acts of violence do not by themselves constitute armed conflict for these provisions.

Crime of aggression

The crime of aggression is a leadership crime involving the planning, preparation, initiation or execution of a state's act of aggression. The perpetrator must be effectively able to control or direct that state's political or military action.

• The state act must constitute a manifest violation of the United Nations Charter by its character, gravity and scale.
• Acts of aggression include invasion, bombardment and blockade by a state's armed forces.