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Control Council for Germany. Crimes against humanity are aimed at any civilian population and are prohibited regardless of whether they are committed in an armed conflict, international or internal in character.

48. Crimes against humanity refer to inhumane acts of a very serious nature, such as wilful killing, torture or rape, committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population on national, political, ethnic, racial or religious grounds. In the conflict in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, such inhumane acts have taken the form of so-called "ethnic cleansing" and widespread and systematic rape and other forms of sexual assault, including enforced prostitution."

Ordinarily, the concept of crimes against humanity extends to crimes committed outwith the context of an armed conflict, as was emphasised by the Appeals Chamber in its Decision on Jurisdiction in the Tadic case. However, the Statute of the International Tribunal specifically requires that, in order to incur its jurisdiction under Article 5, these crimes be committed in an armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia, although this armed conflict may be international or internal in nature.

In the Nikolic Rule 61 Decision of 20 October 1995⁵, Trial Chamber I confirmed that an armed conflict was the first requirement for a crime to be considered a crime against humanity by the International Tribunal. In addition, the Trial Chamber considered that the requirement that crimes must be "directed against any civilian population" is specific to crimes against humanity and entails three components.

"First, the crimes must be directed at a civilian population, specifically identified as a group by the perpetrators of those acts. Secondly, the crimes must, to a certain extent, be organised and systematic. Although they need not be related to a policy established at State level, in the conventional sense of the term, they cannot be the work of isolated individuals alone. Lastly, the crimes, considered as a whole, must be of a certain scale and gravity."

Subsequently, Trial Chamber II, in a Decision on the Form of the Indictment in the Tadic case, emphasised that

"The very nature of the criminal acts in respect of which competence is conferred upon the International Tribunal by Article 5, that they be "directed against any civilian population", ensures that what is to be alleged will not be one particular act but, instead, a course of conduct."

Of further importance is the finding of the International Tribunal that crimes against humanity may be committed against persons who at one time bore arms, but who have subsequently ceased from taking part in combat activities. In its Vukovar Rule 61 Decision,

5. Prosecutor v Dragan Nikolic, Review of the Indictment pursuant to Rule 61, 20 October 1995, IT-94-2-R61.