The genesis of international legal regulation of the crime against humanity notion

The right for war that existed in classic international law and was the means ofsettlement of international disputes ("jus ad bellum") did not attach the legal effect to the term "crime against humanity". The wordcombination "crime against humanity", as E. David notes, is used for defining "some heinous violent actions, that are taken on a largescale by people, regardless from their being the representatives of a state, to the prejudice of other people, as a rule, mainly in thepolitical, ideological, racial, national, ethnic and religious goals". The first step in this direction was taken on the 8th of August 1945,when four allied powers - the USSR, the US, the UK and France signed the London Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment ofthe Main War Criminals of the European Axis, the attachment to which was the Charter of the International Military Tribunal. Article 6of the Charter defined the categories of the crimes, for the commission of which the Tribunal had a right to try and punish anyindividuals or groups. Among such were the war crimes, crimes against peace and security and the crimes against humanity. It is the lastcategory (crimes against humanity) that caused most difficulties in the correct classification. According to the interpretation of theTribunal itself, these actions will be classified as the crimes against humanity only if they were committed due to or with the aim ofcommitting war crimes or crimes against peace and security. Considering the question on the legal regulation of crimes againsthumanity, one cannot but mention the International Military Tribunal for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The Charter of the Tribunalfor former Yugoslavia that was accepted by the UN Security Council in 1993 defines crimes against humanity in Article 5 almostrepeating the wording of the Code project of crimes against peace and security of the International Law Commission. This category ofcrimes poorly addresses to armed conflicts. From this point of view there is a more successful wording by the Charter of theInternational Military Tribunal for Rwanda, which, in contrast to the relevant clauses in the Charter of the International MilitaryTribunal for former Yugoslavia, does not specify the necessity of an armed conflict presence for responsibility coming. The mostdetailed wording of the bodies of crimes against humanity is in the International Criminal Court Statute, in Article 7, where all the fourcriteria were absolutely clearly presented that allow distinguishing between the qualification of crimes against humanity and thecommon crimes: 1) gravity of a crime, target of a crime - life, health of a human and his or her physical immunity on a mass scale;2) mass character conditional on a great number of victims; 3) agreed plan, which means deliberation in the actions taken and 4) motives.

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