THE JURISPRUDENCE OF MAKING THE SENTENCING OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY MORE SEVERE THAN WAR CRIMES

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyze the issue of penalties for crimes against humanity and war crimes and advance theargument that penalties for crimes against humanity should be more severe than war crimes. This is incontradistinction to the present position where the penalties for crime against humanity and war crimes are thesame. In other words, for instance, if Mr A kills four persons in the course of an armed conflict, the penalties willbe the same even if Mr A is convicted of war crimes or crimes against humanity. One major consequence of theexisting proposition and permutation is that it plays down criminal intentions and motives that naturally followwar crimes and crimes against humanity which are cardinal ingredients and elements needed by the prosecutionto successfully prosecute, for instance, the crime of murder in many jurisdictions. One reason the presentapproach has continued is that there seems to be no generally accepted blueprint and guideline to determinedifferent levels of sentencing for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Even though the contextual elementsof the war crimes and crimes against humanity are largely interwoven and analogous, crimes against humanityand war crime are not the same and should not carry the same penalties This paper seeks to recommend that theinternational community needs to adopt an index for imposing higher penalties for crimes against humanity visa-vis war crimes. Crime against humanity has a motivation with a heinous intent to kill, accompanied by anextremely serious result, such as loss of life, grievous injury, or destruction of property. This is in addition to thefact that crime against humanity is committed both in times of war and of peace.