Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
90
Catholic populations. He was, at no time, publicly criticized by the archbishops in Brooklyn
(which was a particularly influential diocese in the 1940s), Boston, or Chicago. At its
height, Coughlin’s radio program had a weekly listening audience of nearly 16 million, of
whom 67 percent, in a poll, said they agreed strongly with his major claims. With the
United States’ entry into World War II, Coughlin was ordered by Attorney General Francis
Biddle (1886–1968) to cease broadcasting, and he returned to his work as a parish priest
in Detroit until his retirement and death in 1979.
Crimes against Humanity. A legal category within international law that identifies
punishable offenses for gross violations of human rights, atrocities, and mass murder of
noncombatant civilians. Such offenses are a relatively new category, largely the product
of international human rights legislation enacted during the twentieth century. Often,
crimes against humanity are bracketed alongside of war crimes, though they differ from
war crimes in that they are not, for the most part, violations of the laws of war; indeed,
crimes against humanity need not occur in wartime at all. A lengthy list of acts that can
be considered as crimes against humanity include, but are not confined to, the following:
murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, and persecutions
on political, racial, and religious grounds. Other inhumane acts not listed
above can also be included, rendering crimes against humanity as an evolutionary category
over which international (or, less likely, national) courts have some degree of discretion.
There is no generally accepted definition of crimes against humanity, and, to
date, no universal international legislation covering such crimes exists. Several groundbreaking
initiatives have, however, placed the category of crimes against humanity in the
forefront of major international humanitarian concern. For example, important case law
precedents were created through the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg
in 1946, when the category of crimes against humanity was actually listed as one of
the four counts faced by the accused Nazi leaders. Since then, the category has been
included in the articles establishing the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former
Yugoslavia and Rwanda (ICTY and ICTR, respectively). On July 1, 2002, the International
Criminal Court (ICC) was established at The Hague, and it incorporated a
lengthy list of acts that were to be included as crimes against humanity. The category is,
generally speaking, a useful one for covering acts that are not considered as genocide
according to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide (1948). Given that there is no universally recognized or binding definition of
crimes against humanity, and that the term is therefore legally imprecise, heinous acts
that cannot be prosecuted as genocide can be prosecuted as crimes against humanity. But
the two categories are not interchangeable, and genocide is now usually considered to be
a crime of greater magnitude.
Crimes of Universal Jurisdiction. Certain crimes—war crimes, crimes against humanity,
and genocide—are considered hostis humani generis (an enemy of all mankind). In that
regard, they are considered crimes of universal jurisdiction, which means that any nation
has the right to try any perpetrator of such crimes, no matter where the crimes were
committed.
Cromwell, Oliver (1599–1658). Lord Protector of England (1649–1658), parliamentarian,
and military commander during and after the English Civil War (1642–1649).
After the execution of King Charles I (1600–1649; reigned 1625–1649) on January 30,
1649, Cromwell turned the attention of Parliament to the ongoing and unresolved issue