Abstract

In a time of unspeakable atrocities and armed conflicts in which the most powerful actors appear to have abandoned the notion that justice should replace revenge in a rules-based (international) order, this article is based on the contribution to the Symposium From Academic Offering to Global Treaty: Negotiating a Convention on Crimes Against Humanity, organized and curated by the members of the Washington University Global Studies Law Review and convened by Professor Leila Sadat, the world’s leading academic in the process towards a Crimes Against Humanity Treaty. 

As Zej Moczydɫowski, Global Studies Law Review Volume 24’s Managing Editor, stated at the beginning of the Symposium, we must be “winning the hearts and minds” of those who are called to consider, discuss, negotiate, and eventually adopt the new treaty, regarding which the UN General Assembly set up a law-making process that should culminate with decision-making in 2029.

But I humbly believe that a major goal of the new treaty will be to try to win the hearts and minds of the would-be perpetrators of crimes against humanity. This corresponds to the main goal of international law, in particular International Human Rights Law and International Criminal Law, which are aimed at putting an end to crimes against humanity. What we are missing now is an instrument that, in a comprehensive way, presents a case against their planning and commission to the decision makers of the world, because these crimes are, by definition, widespread or systematic. They are not committed by random individuals, not exercising any significant form of power. Perpetrators (including would-be perpetrators), need to have the means to commit crimes against humanity: They need to have effective control and capacity to mobilize efforts of what we call “mass-criminality” or organized and complex crimes. Therefore, our main goal for a new treaty outlawing crimes against humanity needs to be to win the hearts and minds of leaders to not commit them anymore including stop retaliating for the commission of mass atrocities with the perpetration of other mass atrocities. The imperative for peace and stability in any given society, including the international society, is justice —not revenge. And so, to have a comprehensive treaty ahead of time before the crimes are committed could certainly be a useful tool to this end.

Keywords: Crimes Against Humanity, New Treaty, Mass Criminality, mass-criminality, complex crimes, perpetrators, international human rights law