Title: Conceptual Considerations on the Notion of ‘Crimes against Humanity’
Abstract: When considering which kinds of armed groups could form the entity behind crimes against humanity, legal debate has turned around the question of whether these groups need to be ‘state-like’ or not. As the law could support different interpretations, this first chapter on crimes against humanity engages with the rich philosophical debate on the crime’s main characteristics. Discussing a variety of philosophical works on this issue, this chapter develops a new approach, arguing that crimes against humanity should be understood as large-scale crimes committed in a context in which victims are deprived of any effective protection. It shows that such situations not only occur if states are involved in the crime, but also if armed groups commit large-scale crimes and the state is either unwilling or unable to halt them.
Publication Year: 2018
Publication Date: 2018-05-24
Language: en
Type: book
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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