So – what are the crimes that Aegis Students campaign against? Following the lead of the Aegis Trust, Aegis students campaigns to prevent, raise awareness and bring an end to events labelled ‘mass atrocities’. In legal terms mass atrocities include genocide, crimes against humanity and large scale war crimes. These are defined in international law in the following ways:
A “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: murder, extermination; enslavement; deportation or forcible transfer of population; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law; torture; rape, sexual slavery.
“War crimes” are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict, such as murder, torture and attacking civilians; “in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.”
“Genocide”, sometimes called the ‘crime of crimes’, is distinguished from other mass atrocities by the intention of the perpetrators to destroy a particular group (in part or all of them).
Aegis Students takes it policy and stance in relation to classification and definition of mass-atrocities as being any of the above crimes, solely from the Aegis Trust. Primarily our campaigns and activities are focussed on preventing genocide; however this also incorporates the prevention of other mass atrocities.
For further information, please see the Aegis Trust website.
