According to international law, what criterion separated genocide from other inequalities crimes, e.g. crimes agaisnt humanity or crimes of aggression?
According to international law, there are specific criteria that distinguish genocide from other crimes such as crimes against humanity or crimes of aggression. These criteria are outlined in the United Nations' Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948.
The Convention defines genocide as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. It establishes five specific acts that, when committed with the aforementioned intent, constitute genocide:
1. Killing members of the group.
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
3. Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the group, in whole or in part.
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
These acts distinguish genocide from other crimes. Crimes against humanity, for example, encompass a wider range of acts directed against a civilian population as part of a systematic attack. These acts may include murder, torture, enslavement, persecution, enforced disappearances, and other inhumane acts, but they do not necessarily require the specific intent to destroy a particular group.
Crimes of aggression, on the other hand, refer to the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence of another state, and are not directly related to the destruction or harm of a specific group based on their identity.
It is important to note that different international legal frameworks, such as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, elaborate on these distinctions and provide further definitions and criteria for crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression.