Disentangling the Intricate Relationship between International Human Rights Law and the Law of Crimes against Humanity.

Crimes against humanity are regularly presented as the implementation of the core of international human rights norms within international criminal law. Just as international human rights law addresses atrocities and other violations perpetrated by a State against its own population, crimes against humanity are focused on prosecuting the individuals who commit such violations. Prima facie, the law of crimes against humanity and international human rights law are consequently often described as ‘two sides of the same coin’ and as mutually reinforcing and cross-fertilizing bodies of law. However, when scratching below the surface, the correlation between the two fields of law is more intricate. If the rationale of crimes against humanity consists indeed in the protection of fundamental rights, then a relationship arises between the individual victim and the state or, at a minimum, a state- like organization exercising de facto power over a territory. Following this, it is argued that, since states and state-like organizations are the only entities currently obliged to uphold international human rights law, only individuals acting pursuant to a policy of a state or state-like organization can be held accountable for crimes against humanity.
In this contribution, it will first be assessed if the application of the human rights paradigm to the law of crimes against humanity amounts to a proper characterization of the relationship between international human rights law and international criminal law. It will be questioned if there is indeed a role to play for international human rights law as a guiding tool when interpreting the law of crimes against humanity or whether it should rather be dismissed as sterile technical legal reasoning that disregards the different nature and purpose of both international criminal law and international human rights law. Secondly, it will be inquired, assuming arguendo the human rights paradigm is to be applied to the law of crimes against humanity, if international human rights law has not yet progressively developed to a point where it can be considered to apply to various other non-state actors that do not pertain to any characteristics of a state, such as territorial control.