Crimes against humanity

Crimes against humanity are certain crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as foreign nationals. Together with war crimes, genocide, and the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity are one of the core crimes of international criminal law and, like other crimes against international law, have no temporal or jurisdictional limitations on prosecution (where universal jurisdiction is recognized). The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place during the Nuremberg trials and subsequent Nuremberg trials against defeated leaders of Nazi Germany and collaborators. Crimes against humanity have been prosecuted by other international courts (such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and the International Criminal Court) as well as by domestic courts. The law of crimes against humanity has primarily been developed as a result of the evolution of customary international law. Crimes against humanity are not codified in an international convention, so an international effort to establish such a treaty, led by the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, has been underway since 2008. According to the Rome Statute, there are eleven types of crimes that can b