In its report to the United Nations Secretary-General in January 2005, the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur insisted that crimes against humanity might, in some cases, be just as serious as genocide. Its comments highlighted what is often a sterile debate about whether to characterise acts as genocide or as “mere” crimes against humanity. Indeed, crimes against humanity was the label attached to the Nazi atrocities at Nuremberg, and it remains one of the “most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole” listed in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Nevertheless, alongside the legal definition of genocide, rooted in the 1948 Convention and confirmed in subsequent case law, there is a more popular or colloquial conception. In practice, this lay understanding of genocide is more akin to crimes against humanity, in that it comprises a broad range of mass atrocities.
