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Journalism of Courage
The United States has determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Vice President Kamala Harris said on Saturday (February 18). Speaking at the Munich Security Conference (MSC), Harris accused Russian forces of carrying out “gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape and deportation” against civilians.
“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: These are crimes against humanity,” she said.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also released a statement on Saturday, saying his country remains deeply committed to “holding members of Russia’s forces and other Russian officials accountable for their atrocities”.
Unlike genocide and war crimes, crimes against humanity aren’t officially codified in an international treaty but are still adjudicated in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other global bodies. One of the first instances of prosecuting crimes against humanity was during the Nuremberg trials of former Nazi officials after the end of World War II, The Washington Post reported.
According to the United Nations, it isn’t clear when was the first time the term was used. Some believe its origin goes back to the late 18th and early 19th century, when it was used in the context of slavery and the slave trade, and to describe atrocities associated with European colonialism in Africa and elsewhere.
The 1998 Rome Statute, which established the ICC, defines the term. It says crimes against humanity are acts such as murder, enslavement, torture and rape that are “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” The statute further mentions that “crimes against humanity do not need to be linked to an armed conflict and can also occur in peacetime, similar to the crime of genocide.”
In order to hold perpetrators accountable, prosecutors need to prove that they were violating the rights of civilians as part of a policy or plan. However, the “plan or policy does not need to be explicitly stipulated or formally adopted and can, therefore, be inferred from the totality of the circumstances”, the statute says.
In his statement, Blinken said he determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity after a careful analysis of the law and available facts. He believes the acts of violence against Ukraine’s civilian population weren’t random or spontaneous but rather were part of “the Kremlin’s widespread and systematic attack”.
“Members of Russia’s forces have committed execution-style killings of Ukrainian men, women, and children; torture of civilians in detention through beatings, electrocution, and mock executions; rape; and, alongside other Russian officials, have deported hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians to Russia, including children who have been forcibly separated from their families”, Blinken added.
Vice President Harris, in her speech, also cited the instances of Russian forces attacking Ukraine’s civilians. She referred to an airstrike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Three people, including a pregnant mother and a newborn, were killed in March. She also mentioned the Bucha massacre, in which Russian forces shot dead hundreds of men and women and left their bodies to rot. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European lawmakers had also earlier claimed that Russian forces were carrying out crimes against humanity in the region.
In November 2022, Amnesty International, a human rights organisation, said Russia was “likely” committing crimes against humanity, referring to several reports of the forceful transfer and deportation of people from Ukraine.
Although crimes against humanity are tried at the ICC, the court doesn’t have the power to arrest suspects. According to the BBC, it can only exercise jurisdiction within countries which signed up to the agreement that set up the court. Russia isn’t a part of this agreement, and therefore, it would be quite strenuous to extradite any suspects.
However, experts suggest that evidence gathered by Ukraine with the support of the US and other international bodies might help them prosecute high-profile Russian officials and senior leaders in the future. In 1999, the former president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milošević, was indicted for crimes against humanity by an international tribunal – years after the atrocities took place.
Talking to the Washington Post, one analyst said, “While it feels impossible right now that you would have some of the most senior leadership on trial, I think we need to take a longer timeline as we think about that.”
(With inputs from The Washington Post and ANI)
