Karen_A._Mingst,_Ivan_M._Arregu_n-Toft]_Essentia

Specific Human Rights Issues 379

Bosnia- Herzegovina, Croatia, Ser-
bia, and Kosovo, people of one eth-
nic group were forced to move,
sometimes killed or placed in con-
centration camps, and raped, but
the reaction by the United Nations
and NATO proved in effec tive in
stopping the carnage. In Darfur
in  the early 2000s, as many as
200,000 people were killed and
millions forced to move. While
the  NGOs provided humanitarian
relief, states failed to act decisively.
A  UN/African Union peacekeeping
force was approved later, but it was
too weak, as Chapter 7 discusses.
In the Rwanda and Darfur cases,
there was a concerted policy of major
states not to use the word geno-
cide, clearly aware that admitting it
was genocide would necessitate an
international response. Instead, at
the outset these were framed as
“ordinary” ethnic conflicts; in ret-
rospect, it is clear they were any-
thing but ordinary. Even when the
NATO- backed co ali tion or ga nized
to stop the ethnic cleansing of Serbs
in Kosovo, NATO never used the
word genocide to describe what
was happening. Neither is the word
genocide used by  many states for
the 1.5 million Armenian Chris-
tians killed in 1915 because of
Turkish policy. A century later, the
dispute continues.
Along with the prohibition
against genocide came the codification of other crimes against humanity and crimes
committed during warfare. These crimes against humanity are now incorporated
in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (see Box 10.2).

BOX 10.2

Crimes against Humanity

Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the

International Criminal Court reads as follows:

For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against

humanity” means any of the following acts

when committed as part of a widespread or

systematic attack directed against any civilian

population, with knowledge of the attack:

(a) Murder;

(b) Extermination;

(c) Enslavement;

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of

population;

(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation

of physical liberty in violation of

fundamental rules of international law;

(f) Torture;

(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution,

forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization,

or any other form of sexual vio lence of

comparable gravity;

(h) Persecution against any identifiable

group or collectivity on po liti cal, racial,

national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender

as defined in paragraph 3, or other

grounds that are universally recognized

as impermissible under international law,

in connection with any act referred to in

this paragraph or any crime within the

jurisdiction of the Court;

(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;

(j) The crime of apartheid;

(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character

intentionally causing great suffering, or

serious injury to body or to mental or

physical health.