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The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime".[1]
On 30 November 1973, the United Nations General Assembly opened for signature and ratification The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.[2] It defined the crime of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them".[3]
According to Human Rights Watch and legal scholar Miles Jackson, apartheid is also prohibited in customary international law although there is still debate as to whether it is criminalized as well.[4][5] Legal scholars Gerhard Kemp and Windell Nortje noted that in 2021, two individuals (former members of apartheid South Africa's security police) became the first persons ever to be prosecuted for the crime of apartheid under customary international law.[6]