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	Joint Statement in Support of Progress toward a Crimes Against Humanity Treaty by Over 600 civil society organizations   Apr. 2024   Joint Statement in Support of Progress toward a Crimes Against Humanity Treaty   The undersigned 600 organizations and individuals — with representation from multiple geographic regions — express our support for a global convention on crimes against humanity, and urge states to utilize the 2024 April Resumed Session of the UN’s Sixth Committee to express strong support for a procedure to be adopted at the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly to move the Draft Articles on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity forward to negotiations for a treaty.   Throughout history, millions of people have been subjected to murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, persecution, and other atrocities that have shocked the conscience of humanity. Crimes against humanity continue unabated across the globe and the Draft Articles provide a timely and urgent opportunity for states to help end impunity.   Although crimes against humanity are among the most serious crimes in international law, there has yet to be a treaty regulating their prevention and punishment. A treaty on crimes against humanity would close a crucial gap in the current international framework on mass atrocities as well as clarifying states’ duties to prevent such crimes and means to cooperate with each other. A crimes against humanity treaty can also rightfully contribute to global affirmation of the gravity of these crimes.   In 2013, the UN’s International Law Commission approved crimes against humanity to be included in its programme of work. The Commission, in 2019, recommended the elaboration of a convention by the UN General Assembly or by an international conference.   In 2022, the UN’s Sixth Committee adopted resolution 77/249 to take forward steps for a treaty on crimes against humanity, including two interactive sessions in 2023 and 2024 on the Draft Articles, and a plan to take a decision on the ILC’s recommendation that a treaty go forward in the 79th session of the General Assembly.   We believe the International Law Commission’s Draft Articles represent a strong starting point to open negotiations on a treaty. There is broad agreement that the Draft Articles contain a number of positive elements, and differences in perspectives on the existing Draft Articles should not be used to perpetuate inaction.   Accordingly, we urge states to follow the Commission’s recommendation that a treaty on crimes against humanity should be negotiated, either by the General Assembly itself or in a Diplomatic Conference convened for that purpose.   Our organizations also urge states at the April resumed session to identify important areas for further strengthening the Draft Articles. A variety of civil society groups have developed proposals toward this end. These include strengthening the proposed treaty by a variety of means.   We urge states at the April resumed session also to express overall support for an approach to the development of a crimes against humanity treaty that is gender-competent, survivor-centric, and deploys an intersectional lens. This includes ensuring the inclusion of a non-discrimination provision to apply and interpret the treaty’s provisions consistent with international human rights law.   We believe it is equally essential that the treaty-making process itself is inclusive. States should facilitate meaningful, inclusive, and safe public and civil society participation from across all regions, in all stages of the treaty-development process.   http://cahtreatynow.org/joint-statement-in-support-of-progress-toward-a-crimes-against-humanity-treaty/ http://cahtreatynow.org/news-updates/ http://www.globalr2p.org/publications/joint-statement-in-support-of-progress-toward-a-crimes-against-humanity-treaty/ http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/10/un-negotiations-crimes-against-humanity-convention/ http://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/24/why-urgent-action-needed-crimes-against-humanity-treaty http://redress.org/publication/briefing-paper-victims-and-survivors-rights-in-a-convention-on-the-prevention-and-punishment-of-crimes-against-humanity/ http://cahtreatynow.org/ http://cahtreatynow.org/resources/ http://www.globaljusticecenter.net/press/650-civil-society-organizations-and-experts-urge-governments-to-advance-draft-crimes-against-humanity-treaty-to-negotiations http://globalrightscompliance.com/2024/03/28/joint-statement-in-support-of-progress-toward-a-crimes-against-humanity-treaty/   May 2023   The U.N. Process for a Crimes Against Humanity Treaty has finally started. Will it account for Persons with Disabilities?, by Janet Lord, Rosemary Kayess, William Pons and Michael Ashley Stein.   Four years after the International Law Commission – the United Nations body charged with progressively developing international law – first submitted draft articles on a crimes against humanity treaty progress is finally underway.   Last November, the U.N.’s legal arm, the Sixth Committee, adopted a resolution that has kickstarted a historic effort to draft an international treaty on crimes against humanity.   April 2023 marked the start of a two-year process of debate and discussion on the draft articles within the Sixth Committee. For all its potential, the Sixth Committee’s review process is a critical opportunity for States to ensure that at-risk groups – including persons with disabilities – are not left behind.   The Need for a New Crimes Against Humanity Treaty   The core aim of this process is to draft a treaty that could require States Parties to take on specific obligations to prevent and punish crimes against humanity, duties which are not imposed by existing legal regimes.   This includes incorporating a unified definition of crimes against humanity in domestic law and taking steps to prosecute them in national courts.   Such crimes include acts of murder, rape, torture, apartheid, deportations, persecution, and other offenses committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population based on a government or organizational policy.   Notably, crimes against humanity may be committed at any time, not only in situations of internal or international armed conflict.   While the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has made great headway in helping to define crimes against humanity, there is a strong rationale for advancing a specific treaty on crimes against humanity: a treaty will help to harmonize existing but inconsistent national laws; fix shortcomings of the Rome Statute by expanding the definitions of existing crimes and adding new ones; enlarge the grounds of persecution; include an obligation of prevention; and strengthen the legal regimes addressing these egregious crimes by establishing an obligation to prosecute or extradite when the alleged offender is present on a State’s territory. It can also stimulate trials at the domestic level.   The Sixth Committee’s Process should embrace efforts to make At-Risk Groups Visible   The draft treaty raises several concerns. Rather than incorporating existing treaty language wholesale, States should seize the opportunity to create a more progressive legal instrument that reflects developments in both international human rights law and dynamics at the U.N. Security Council. Doing so will build a stronger treaty that embraces the realities and experiences of at-risk groups when atrocities occur.   The Definition of Crimes Against Humanity   Let’s start with the text itself. The ILC draft articles adopt verbatim the language of Article 7 of the Rome Statute into Article 2 of the ILC draft articles, which defines “crimes against humanity.” Article 2 accordingly references, within that definition, “persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law.”   While the catch-all phrase “or other grounds” is included, it nonetheless permits non-enumerated groups for whom international law, and its protection remit, has developed since 1998 to remain anonymously lumped together.   Without the disaggregation, which is essential to amplify and elevate protection needs of highly at-risk groups, many persons remain invisible. This is particularly true for groups that receive specific protection under international law due to enhanced risk such as women, children, and persons with disabilities.   Much work has been done to amplify and render more visible the victims of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the years since the Rome Statute was adopted. Advancements such as the development of policy papers by the Office of the Prosecutor for the ICC on the topics of Gender Persecution, Children, and Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes demonstrate that international criminal law is not static nor siloed, but instead a responsive and evolving framework that must actively seek to include those groups who are often forgotten.   These progressive developments are relevant for the upcoming treaty process and should be borne in mind by the States debating and discussing the provisions of the draft articles.   Since the adoption of the Rome Statute, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) – a core human rights convention approaching universal ratification – was adopted. Of note, it contains an innovative provision (Article 11), which addresses accounting for the protection needs of persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including armed conflicts, humanitarian emergencies, and natural disasters, and incorporates international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and other international legal domains (including international criminal law, international refugee law, and international environmental law) with relevance for protection.   Specific Protection Mandates adopted by the U.N. Security Council   Other developments within the U.N. system regarding protection are important to note. Action by the U.N. Security Council has substantially elevated specific protection mandates through the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security, Security Council Resolution 1612 (2005) on children and armed conflict and, more recently, Security Council Resolution 2475 (2019) on the protection of persons with disabilities.   Efforts are being made across the U.N. system to adopt intersectional approaches and to move away from superficial and primarily symbolic references to protecting an undefined and generalized “vulnerable” groups to a more direct and meaningful inclusion of persons with disabilities in all aspects of U.N. operations.   This marks a significant shift away from the previous charity and medical approaches to disability, which all but render persons with disabilities invisible. Those models viewed persons with disabilities as objects who deserve pity or consider disability as something to be “cured,” rather than simply part of a person’s identity.   Research released just prior to the CRPD’s drafting demonstrates how those approaches were, and in some ways still remain, prevalent within the U.N. human rights system.   By contrast, the CRPD’s approach to disability – the social model – focuses on how an individual interacts with an environment that fails to accommodate them. Using the social model, it is a lack of ramps or large print books, not a person’s mobility impairment or low vision, that are disabling. This movement towards fuller recognition of the rights of persons with disabilities necessarily extends to the right to seek justice for violations of their rights, a right that is frequently denied.   Put simply, cutting and pasting Article 7 of the Rome Statue into a new treaty on crimes against humanity does not provide for the full incorporation of international human rights norms that have developed after the Rome Statute’s adoption, including those reflected in the CRPD such as the social model of disability, into the definition of crimes against humanity.   To this end, the 4th Report of Professor Sean Murphy, the ILC Special Rapporteur for the ILC drafting process, noted that a group of U.N. special rapporteurs and independent experts urged during the ILC drafting process that persecution should be broadly delineated to include “persecution on grounds of language, social origin, age, disability, health, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex characteristics and indigenous, refugee, statelessness or migration status.”   It is imperative that this more inclusive definition be reflected in the text of a treaty on crimes against humanity. And this is particularly important for persons with disabilities given the CRPD’s protection obligations on State Parties.   Further,efforts to make visible gender-based crimes and crimes against children, which correspond to actions to account for these crimes by international criminal tribunals, demonstrate that it is possible to account for persons with disabilities in a similar manner.   Adopting a Progressive Human Rights Framework in the Crimes Against Humanity Treaty   The omission of an explicit mention of persons with disabilities and indeed other groups recognized as specifically protected under international law and under U.N. Security Council resolutions overlooks the history of abuse they have faced.   For individuals with disabilities this lurid history, includes mass murder, and targeted killing; forced sterilization; involuntary medical and scientific experimentation; use of persons with disabilities as human shields, suicide bombers and booby-traps; institutionalization, sexual violence, human trafficking and forced disappearance; and attacks against buildings dedicated to the education, health care and rehabilitation of persons with disabilities.   In the light of this, disability merits direct reference as part of Article 2(h) regarding persecution, thereby acknowledging that persons with disabilities and atrocities committed against them must be accounted for by the international criminal law framework. The inclusion of provisions specifically protecting other at-risk groups, whether children or women who fall under specific protection mandates, also must be acknowledged.   We know from prior experience that assuming intersectional interpretations, of norms designed to accord protection to the most at-risk populations, is simply not enough. This is especially true when those underlying marginalized populations are further marginalized by being designated within an “other” category.   There is ample room to acknowledge hard-won advances in international law since the adoption of the Rome Statute and to maintain visibility of groups that have, if only relatively recently, been accorded specific protection based on specific and differentiated needs.   Any move that does not advance an inclusive understanding of crimes against humanity – in an attempt to avoid conflict with the Rome Statute and existing international criminal law – will be a disservice to survivors and a major step backwards in the Sixth Committee’s current efforts to ensure more inclusive justice.   * WHO: An estimated 1.3 billion people experience significant disability. This represents 16% of the world’s population, or 1 in 6 of us. http://tinyurl.com/mr2tw2pk   * Michael Stein is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability and Visiting Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School. Janet Lord is a senior fellow at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability and a senior Legal Advisor to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. William Pons is Research Associate at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability and serves as Senior Legal advisor to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Rosemary Kayess is Vice Chair of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.   http://www.justsecurity.org/86724/the-u-n-process-for-a-crimes-against-humanity-treaty-has-finally-started-will-it-account-for-persons-with-disabilities/ http://www.justsecurity.org/tag/proposed-crimes-against-humanity-treaty/ http://www.globaljusticecenter.net/files/20230406_CAHtreaty_Factsheet.pdf   * Leila Sadat, a professor at Washington University and a special adviser on crimes against humanity to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, offers a simple explanation of the Draft Crimes Aaginst Humanity Treaty: http://tinyurl.com/4f4mufjd   * On 18 November 2022, the U.N. General Assembly’s Sixth Committee adopted a draft resolution on the International Law Commission (ILC)’s 2019 Draft Articles on Crimes Against Humanity. Co-sponsored by 86 States, the resolution establishes a two-year time frame for the exchange of ‘substantive views’ on ‘all aspects’ of the draft articles, including two convenings of the Sixth Committee in April 2023 and 2024. Civil society experts in international law discuss recent developments: http://tinyurl.com/mphh2krs   http://www.globaljusticecenter.net/press-center/events/1686-draft-articles-on-crimes-against-humanity-takeaways-and-next-steps-for-civil-society http://www.globaljusticecenter.net/gendering-the-draft-treaty-on-crimes-against-humanity/ http://www.justsecurity.org/90024/continued-positive-momentum-on-crimes-against-humanity-treaty   Apr. 2023   Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month - Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect   Each year during April the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect solemnly observes Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month, marking the grim anniversaries of the start of several genocides in the past century.   This month of commemoration is a time to honor all the victims and survivors of past atrocity crimes not only by remembering, but by redoubling our efforts and commitment to “Never Again” for those around the world today who remain at risk of these unconscionable crimes. Memorialization of genocide and its victims is an essential part of atrocity prevention.   On 6 April the siege of Sarajevo began during the Bosnian War. For nearly four years the Bosnian Serb Army besieged the city and subjected the population to heavy bombardment and shelling, killing more than 11,000 people. Atrocities were perpetrated throughout the Bosnian War, including ethnic cleansing campaigns, systematic mass rape and the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica.   On 7 April the international community commemorates the 29th anniversary of the start of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Over the course of a 100-day period between April and July approximately one million Rwandans were murdered in the fastest genocide of the twentieth century. Despite clear and credible warnings from those within Rwanda, the United Nations and its member states failed to take timely and decisive action to prevent the impending genocide.   On 17 April 1975 the “Khmer Rouge” seized power in Cambodia, where they used state authority to perpetrate a genocide. All Cambodians were deprived of their basic human rights and those deemed “enemies of the people” were murdered in the notorious “killing fields.” The Khmer Rouge also systematically targeted minority religious and ethnic communities for destruction. An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians lost their lives, but political divisions amongst the permanent members of the UN Security Council meant that the world largely ignored these crimes until after the Khmer Rouge were overthrown in January 1979.   Starting on 24 April 1915 over one million Armenians living under Ottoman Empire rule were targeted and killed during mass deportations. Armenian property and cultural institutions were pillaged, while thousands of women were abducted and forced into religious conversion. The systematic attempt to destroy the Armenian people was genocide.   Throughout April we also commemorate the liberation of several major Nazi concentration camps during 1945, including Buchenwald, Dachau, Dora-Mittlebau, Flossenbürg and Bergen-Belsen. During the Holocaust, Nazi Germany and its allies systematically persecuted and murdered six million Jews, large numbers of whom were detained and exterminated in concentration camps.   As we approach the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, these anniversaries serve as reminders from history that the world should no longer tolerate political indifference and inaction whenever and wherever populations face an imminent risk of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes.   As we observe this Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month, populations around the world continue to face the threat of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes not for anything they have done, but for who they are. It is for this reason that the relentless and consistent implementation of the Responsibility to Protect is more important than ever.   We hope that during this Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month member states recommit to upholding their enduring moral and political responsibility to protect the world’s most vulnerable populations and take timely and effective action wherever and whenever atrocity crimes are threatened. This solemn responsibility must be upheld with consistency, courage and without exception.   http://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml http://www.globalr2p.org/ http://www.justsecurity.org/87571/the-un-should-increase-support-for-the-responsibility-to-protect/ Visit the related web page
	World Food Programme appeals for greater funding support to address rising hunger by Carl Skau, David Beasley World Food Programme   16 May 2023   World Food Programme (WFP) calls on developed countries to keep focus on hunger as crises in Sudan, Haiti and Sahel add to global food crisis.   Developed countries commitment to global food security in 2022 must be maintained in 2023 as new crises in Sudan, Haiti and the Sahel push more people into hunger, the UN World Food Programme said today, just days before G7 leaders were due to meet in Japan.   At least 345 million people are currently facing high levels of food insecurity, according to WFP analysis, an increase of almost 200 million since early 2020. Of these, 43 million are just one step away from famine. Meanwhile, WFP has recently been forced to cut food rations in operations in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Palestine as needs outpace available funding. More cuts are looming in Somalia and Chad.   “Last year, devloped country humanitarian funding support achieved life-saving results in the fight against hunger. Millions of people received much needed support and countries like Somalia were pulled back from the brink of famine. Unfortunately, the global food crisis hasn’t gone away. And situations like Sudan and Haiti are adding fuel to the fire,” said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program.   Fighting in Sudan has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and pushed millions into hunger. WFP estimates that between 2 and 2.5 million additional people will become acutely food insecure in coming months as a direct result of ongoing fighting, taking the total in the country to a record 19 million.   In Haiti, hunger is tightening its grip as insecurity, violence and deepening economic woes drive food insecure Haitians further into crisis. A record 4.9 million people in the country are estimated to be facing acute hunger, around 45% of the population.   Similarly, in the Sahel region of Africa, new outbreaks of violence in places such as Burkina Faso are driving hunger among fleeing populations as well as those whose lives and livelihoods have been upended by conflict.   WFP calls on developed countries to continue funding food assistance for the hundreds of millions of people affected by the global food crisis and the millions new to hunger since last year.   It is also calling for political support for other actions which would help ease the crisis These include working for the continuation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, ensuring adequate supplies of fertilizer and supporting programmes to increase smallholder farmers’ production.   Longer term requests centre on the need to make vulnerable populations more resilient. They include a renewed focus on social protection for communities at risk and ensuring every child in need receives a nutritious meal in school daily.   Last year, developed country leaders stated they would “spare no effort to increase global food and nutrition security” and to protect the most vulnerable. They also committed to strengthen the long-term resilience of agriculture and food systems so that poor countries would be less vulnerable in the future.   Conflict remains one of the main drivers of global hunger. Events in Sudan are just the latest example of how food insecurity rises when guns come out. WFP asks all countries to “work toward political solutions to protracted crises where conflict is the primary driver of hunger.”   Apr 2023   The World Food Program needs $23 billion to feed millions facing hunger and help avert starvation, destabilization of countries and mass migration, outgoing Executive Director David Beasley warned last week.   China, oil-rich countries in the Middle East and billionaires whose wealth climbed amid the pandemic must all increase their support for the WFP as global hunger climbs and the Ukraine war distracts donors from other crises, Beasley says.   In an interview Mr. Beasley said he’s “extremely worried” that WFP won’t raise about $23 billion it needs this year to help people in desperate need of support. “Right at this stage, I’ll be surprised if we get 40% of it, quite frankly,” he said.   Last year, the World Food Program raised enough money from donors, to help 128 million people in more than 120 countries and territories.   Countries need to step up now, he said, starting with China, the world’s second-largest economy which gave WFP just $11 million last year. Beasley applauded China for its success in substantially reducing hunger and poverty at home, but said China needs “to engage in the multilateral world” and be willing to provide help that is critical. “We need their help, particularly in poorer countries including in Africa".   With high oil prices Gulf countries can also do more, especially Muslim nations that have relations with countries in east Africa, the Sahara and elsewhere in the Middle East, he said, calling on them to increase their contributions.   Mr. Beasley said the wealthiest billionaires made unprecedented profits during the COVID-19 pandemic, and “it’s not too much to ask multibillionaires to step up and help in the crisis”.   “The world has to understand that the next 12 to 18 months is critical, and if we back off the funding, you will have mass migration, and you will have destabilization nations and that will all be on top of starvation among children and people around the world,” he warned.   Mr. Beasley said WFP was just forced to cut rations by 50% to 4 million people in Afghanistan, and “these are people who are knocking on famine’s door now.”   “We don’t have enough money just to reach the most vulnerable people now,” he said. “So we are in a crisis right now, where we literally could have hell on earth if we’re not very careful.”   The food crisis “is going to get worse,” he added. Climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine are all to blame, he said.   Among the 350 million people the United Nations classifies as suffering from acute food insecurity — 50 million people are “knocking on famine’s door,” Beasley said. “That 50 million has got to get food, or otherwise they clearly will die,” he said.   Beasley said he’s been telling leaders in the West and Europe that while they’re focusing everything on Ukraine and Russia, “you better well not forget about what’s south and southeast of you because I can assure you it is coming your way if you don’t pay attention and get on top of it.”   The WFP executive director said leaders have to prioritize the humanitarian needs that are going to have the greatest impact on stability in societies around the world.   Beasley said “it’s hard not to get a little depressed at times by the overwhelming needs” but seeing little girls and boys smiling in the midst of war and suffering from hunger “inspires you not to give up,” he said.   With $400 trillion worth of wealth on the planet, he said, there’s no reason for any child to die of starvation.   http://www.wfp.org/publications/hunger-hotspots-fao-wfp-early-warnings-acute-food-insecurity-june-november-2023 http://www.wfp.org/publications/wfp-global-operational-response-plan-update-8-june-2023 http://www.wfp.org/countries http://hungermap.wfp.org/ http://dataviz.vam.wfp.org/version2/ http://executiveboard.wfp.org/document_download/WFP-0000146953 http://www.ipcinfo.org/ Visit the related web page
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