Analyzing the Draft Convention on Crimes against Humanity

The adoption of a Convention on Crimes against Humanity and preferably one that also updates the Genocide Convention would mark another milestone in the evolution of the international criminal justice system. In 2017 the International Law Commission (ILC) adopted 15 draft Articles and a draft Preamble. This essay examines the history of the ILC draft and analyses several of its major provisions in light of the existing corpus of international criminal law. An important question in this relation is the necessity and the innovations of the draft in spite of the ratification of the Rome Status. There are pros and cons in the comparative analyzing of the draft that examined in this article. However the Commission’s work could be enhanced and the new treaty made more robust by addressing certain deficiencies in the draft, many of which would either reinforce the jus cogens nature of the crime or enhance the preventive regime the draft seeks to bring into existence.