Tag

#crimes against humanity

Specific prohibited acts (murder, torture, deportation, persecution, etc.) committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population. Defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute and applicable outside of armed conflict.

5 incidents

Grade 5 of 5: International Crime (Rome Statute)

Eastern Pacific Convoy Strike: Eight Men Who Jumped Overboard Left in the Sea as US Forces Sank Their Boats (December 2025)

A US strike on a three-boat convoy killed three men outright; eight others jumped into rough seas before US forces sank their boats, and none was ever found. The military first reported three dead and confirmed the eight only after reporting by The Intercept. The incident falls within a campaign that a UN Special Rapporteur found, at the reasonable-grounds standard, constituted crimes against humanity of murder.

Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern

Epstein Files: DOJ Withholds Evidence, UN Experts Warn of Crimes Against Humanity

After signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Trump administration's DOJ missed legal deadlines, secretly re-redacted files, and withheld documents containing an unadjudicated allegation that Trump sexually abused a minor. Separately, UN special-procedure experts stated that a number of the crimes described in the files 'may reasonably meet' the threshold of crimes against humanity. The case has drawn bipartisan congressional subpoenas of AG Bondi, and calls for a special counsel over alleged perjury.

Grade 5 of 5: International Crime (Rome Statute)

Operation Southern Spear: Lethal Drone Strikes on Caribbean and Pacific Drug Boats

A sustained campaign of Hellfire missile strikes on suspected drug boats has killed at least 231 people (CBS News count, September 2026) without due process, public evidence of drug trafficking, or identification of the dead. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Special Rapporteur Ben Saul and Human Rights Watch characterise the strikes as extrajudicial killings; Saul's September 2026 briefing note to the Human Rights Council found reasonable grounds that they constitute a crime against humanity, as have several scholars (Lawfare, War on the Rocks).

Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern

Forced Disappearances of Salvadoran Deportees in El Salvador's Prison System

Systematic forced disappearances of Salvadoran nationals deported from the US, held incommunicado in Salvadoran prisons including CECOT with no access to lawyers, families, or courts. The US is accused of breaching non-refoulement by deporting people to a system that human rights groups document as practising enforced disappearance. Amnesty International has said El Salvador's state-of-exception abuses could amount to crimes against humanity.

Grade 1 of 5: Significant Democratic Concern

Bolton: Trump Told Xi to 'Go Ahead' With Uyghur Detention Camps

According to John Bolton, Trump privately told Xi Jinping that building the Xinjiang detention camps was 'exactly the right thing to do', and repression of the Uyghurs was set aside as a reason for sanctions while trade talks continued. Trump denies the book's account. The Trump administration on July 9, 2020 sanctioned Xinjiang party secretary Chen Quanguo and other officials (Wikipedia) and, on its last full day, declared the persecution a genocide.