4. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CONVENTION
AND OTHER INSTRUMENTS OF INTERNATIONAL
CRIMINAL LAW
Rather than being a norm-setting human rights treaty along the lines of, for
example, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention
against Torture belongs primarily to the category of international criminal law
instruments. One may therefore ask how the Convention relates to other bodies
of international criminal law which have jurisdiction over the crime of torture.
The following section aims to provide a brief overview of the relationship
between the Convention and other international criminal law instruments with
jurisdiction over torture offences.
III. THEMATIC SUMMARY OF SOME CENTRAL ISSUES PERTAINING TO THE CONVENTION
4. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CONVENTION AND OTHER INSTRUMENTS OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
4.1. The Convention in Relation to the International
Criminal Court
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The International Criminal Court (ICC) will be a permanent Court trying individuals accused of committing genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and,
possibly in the future, the crime of aggression. The definition in the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court (hereafter: “ICC Statute”) of the
crimes is broadly consistent with that elaborated by international law, though the
Statute also reflects some progressive development in defining certain crimes,
notably gender-related offences.244
The crime of torture falls within the jurisdiction of the ICC when it is committed
in the context of crimes against humanity, i.e. when it is committed as part of a
widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with
knowledge of the attack245. Torture, when it is committed in the context of
crimes against humanity means:
“…the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical
or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the
accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising
only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions;”246
The term “war crimes” denotes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions,
namely, inter alia, torture or inhuman treatment of, including biological experiments upon, persons protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva
Convention in the context of armed conflict.247
Contrary to this definition of torture in the ICC Statute, the definition in the
Convention against Torture is not concerned with the context in which the torture —as defined in Article 1 of the Convention— occurs.
While the Convention against Torture is concerned with the establishment and
exercise of jurisdiction over torture in national laws, the ICC will be an independent international body with jurisdiction over a range of the most serious interna-
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