Starvation at the International Criminal Court: Reflections on the Available Options for the Prosecution of the Crime of Starvation

Abstract

This article investigates whether crimes of starvation not committed as a method of warfare could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. It assesses whether it is possible to use crimes already typified in the articles of the Rome Statute to prosecute all those cases of starvation that cannot be prosecuted as war crimes because they were committed neither during an armed conflict nor in association with an armed conflict. More specifically, it addresses the question of whether nowadays peacetime starvation could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court as an act of genocide, an act of persecution, an act of extermination or as an “inhumane act”.