The invidiuous distinction between genocide and crimes against humanity is as follows: Genocide focuses not on the killing of individuals, but on the destruction of groups, while crimes against humanity focuses on the killing of large numbers of individuals. The systematic, mass killing of a very large number of individuals is a crime against humanity. The objective of the two concepts is different: One focuses on protecting the group, and the other the other the individual (Lemkin vs Lauterpacht).
So far, there are no conclusions about whether Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine. That’s according to Erik Møse at the United Nations. However, members of his Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Violations in Ukraine say Russia may have committed crimes against humanity1.
Former Russian President Dmytry Medvedev on Telegram:
В конвенции также сказано, что лица, совершающие геноцид, подлежат справедливому наказанию. Хохломразь, которая виновна в убийстве мирных граждан Донбасса, ждёт заслуженная кара за всё, что она сделала. Именно поэтому специальная военная операция должна идти до полного выполнения её целей. До окончательной победы над теми, кто восемь лет подвергал собственный народ издевательствам и истреблению.
И да будут они прокляты вне зависимости от правовой квалификации их действий. Пусть сгорят в аду!
The response from deputy head of Ukraine’s President’s Office:
What is political toothlessness and indirect encouragement of a criminal? A never-ending master class from the #UN. This time commissioner Erik Møse, head of the @UN Commission bluntly says that they saw no intent to commit genocidal crimes on the part of #Russia against Ukrainian citizens. Absolutely, because the Russians came to kill us... kindly, en masse. Ukrainians exactly, but without premeditation. And the missiles are flying into the cities every night in a kindly manner. And the attempt to destroy the energy infrastructure in the winter so that people are killed by frost is completely accidental. And a full-blown war for 560+ days with hundreds of Ukrainian towns and villages wiped out to the ground is strictly within the bounds of acceptable "non-genocide". And the official calls to "kill a Ukrainian!" are without premeditation. And torture in filtration camps with compulsion to abandon Ukrainian identity and impose Russian identity is also with love. The Ministry of Love. Ah yes, the Russians are not acting like in Rwanda yet, they are not slaughtering people by the millions. If Ukrainians would voluntarily go out on the road, kneel down, humbly give their heads to Russian soldier to cut it off, en masse, for the record, then yes. Then it's about genocide. Otherwise, it's just about a correct war, where there is a little bit of slaughter, burning, raping on ethnic-state grounds. And let them continue, right, Mr. #Møse? They have the right because the UN encourages it, right? — Mykhail Podolyak
The crime against humanity is an offense in international criminal law, adopted in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Nürnberg Charter), which tried surviving Nazi leaders in 1945, and was, in 1998, incorporated into the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Crimes against humanity include of various heinous acts — murder, extermination, enslavement, torture, forcible transfers of populations, imprisonment, rape, persecution, enforced disappearance, and apartheid, among others — when, according to the ICC, those are “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.”
The term also has a broader use in condemning other acts that, in a phrase often used, “shock the conscience of mankind.” Environmental disasters, ecocide, like blowing up hydroelectric dams and civilian infrastructure, like shooting missiles at shopping malls, hospitals and invincibility shelters, have been described as crimes against humanity. The dictionary says broader use of the term “may be intended only to register the highest possible level of moral outrage, or the intention may be to suggest that such offenses be recognized, formally, as legal offenses.”
International recognition of what we know to be true will take a long time.
That Møse and members of his commission still don’t already have a grip on transmitted hate propaganda is worrisome.
Denys Kazansky on YouTube has for months been documenting numerous criminal acts, including one illustrating 21st century-style ethnocide, Russia’s attempt to destroy Ukrainian culture while keeping the people2. Yesterday he posted a clip about the renewal of a landscape park in Motyzhyn trashed outside of Kyiv in early 2022.
In other news, Lawrence Freedman writes a zillion-word essay about Team USA’s capacity to remain a helpful player in our existential struggle, noting the worries of within the Beltway about backing Ukraine without neglecting Taiwan.
Actually, Kyiv has great relations with Tapei, but most people, including Lawrence, are not aware of this (because it’s top secret). Thanks to the war, Ukraine is becoming the strongest partner for Taiwan in Europe. Bilateral relations are growing at the highest political levels, with officials talking to each other, and across many areas from industry and civilian universities, as well as think tanks, chip manufacturers and increasing number of businesses. The importance of this collaboration grows three times a week near the French cultural center in downtown Kyiv.
Lily has written about this obliquely, but I’m more interested in the debate as framed by the late Wiktor Osiatyński from Bialystok (who wound up championing AA for Open Society).