Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, briefs the United Nations
Security Council. UN Photo / Eskinder Debebe
against humanity.63 These and other elements are sometimes referred to as
“chapeaux” or “contextual elements”, and will be spelled out in the statute, or the
domestic or customary law, governing the conduct.
Domestic criminal justice systems globally have different elements, descriptions and
categorizations of crimes.64 This guidance is aligned primarily with the law and
practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC), given its role in international
criminal law and the Rome Statute’s broad membership. Jurisprudence from other
international tribunals is also germane.
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64
34
Rome Statute, art. 7.
States also have obligations under international law to criminalize in their domestic law certain human
rights violations, such as human trafficking or individual acts of torture. An investigative body may also
identify individuals perpetrating such crimes (see “Crimes under domestic law”, below).
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