The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative

The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative is a rule of law research and advocacy project of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. Started in 2008 by Professor Leila Nadya Sadat, the Initiative has as its goals the study of the need for a comprehensive international convention on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, the analysis of the necessary elements of such a convention, and the drafting of a proposed treaty. To date, the Initiative has held several experts' meetings and conferences, published a Proposed Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity, and resulted in the publication of an edited volume, Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity, by Cambridge University Press. The draft treaty is now available in seven languages and is currently being debated by the UN International Law Commission and governments around the world.

Crimes against humanity, along with crimes against peace and war crimes, were one of the three categories of crimes elaborated upon in the Nuremberg Charter, in response to the grave atrocities committed during the Second World War. Since the establishment of the Nuremberg principles and the adoption of the Genocide Convention, genocide and war crimes have widely been recognized and prohibited in international criminal law. However, there has never been a comprehensive convention on crimes against humanity, even though such crimes are continuously perpetrated worldwide in numerous conflicts and crises. Consequently, an international convention on crimes against humanity is a key missing element in the current framework of international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and human rights law. Washington University's Crimes Against Humanity (CAH) Initiative represents the first concerted effort to address the gap that exists in international criminal law by enumerating a comprehensive international convention on crimes against humanity. While the Genocide Convention provides a legal framework for prosecuting perpetrators of genocide, and the Geneva Conventions address war crimes, crimes against humanity have yet to be codified. The statutes of the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda each contain different definitions of crimes against humanity, further demonstrating the need for a comprehensive convention that would both punish perpetrators and prevent such atrocities from occurring in the future.

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