Crime Against Humanity as One of The Most Serious Crimes Under International Law

According to international customary law, a crime against humanity, next to genocide and war crimes, is one of the most serious crimes under international law. Its prohibition has attained the status of a peremptory norm ius cogens, and therefore there can be no other norm that would repeal the prohibition of committing crimes against humanity, transforming it into an absolutely binding legal norm.

Crimes against humanity are committed not only during major armed conflicts, but also in times of peace. Individuals convicted or facing criminal proceedings before international criminal tribunals or national courts have committed crimes against humanity during the rule of military juntas in Central and Latin American countries such as Guatemala, Lima, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina, as well as during major ethnic cleansings or armed conflicts in countries such as Cambodia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Rwanda, and the countries that were part of the Former Yugoslavia.Unfortunately, events on the territory of Ukraine since 2014 , particularly the commencement of a new, official stage of Russian armed aggression against Ukraine, i.e. a full-scale armed invasion – have led Ukraine to face the greatest unprovoked and openly declared armed aggression on the European continent since World War II, regardless of the propaganda arguments presented by the aggressor.

The seriousness and scale of acts committed by Russian army soldiers on the territory of Ukraine since February 24, 2022, compelled the international community to react. The International Criminal Court in The Hague (hereinafter – ICC), currently the only body possessing jurisdiction over acts committed since February 24, 2022, on the territory of Ukraine, was forced to take specific actions. This expertise aims to present the definition of crimes against humanity by analyzing the individual elements of mens rea and , based on the example of selected jurisprudence of the international tribunal. Given that only the International.

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