UN expert: Excluding hostage-taking from crimes against humanity is a grave mistake
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Gill Edwards, has called on the international community and UN member states to take the decisive legal step of explicitly including the crime of hostage-taking in the forthcoming new convention on crimes against humanity. This call comes at a time of heightened global tensions, with the UN official asserting that excluding this crime from the convention's text would constitute a "grave omission" with potentially serious legal and humanitarian consequences.
Hostages and torture: parallel suffering
In her lawsuit, Edwards explained that the practice of hostage-taking is no less horrific than physical and psychological torture. She pointed out that victims held captive by kidnappers endure immense suffering that goes far beyond mere deprivation of liberty, including constant threats of death, bargaining over their lives, and complete isolation from the outside world. She asserted that these conditions clearly constitute torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, warranting a legal classification commensurate with the gravity of the crime.
Legal context and importance of amendment
These demands come as the UN General Assembly’s Sixth Committee (Legal Committee) is discussing draft articles on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity. While current international law, including the Geneva Conventions, classifies hostage-taking as a “war crime” in the context of armed conflict, classifying it as a “crime against humanity” extends accountability to times outside of traditional armed conflict, or when such crimes are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.
Closing the loopholes that allow for impunity
The UN Special Rapporteur warned that leaving hostage-taking outside the scope of the new convention could be interpreted as international complacency, perpetuating a culture of impunity for perpetrators, whether they are state actors or non-state armed groups. Classifying this act as a crime against humanity grants states universal jurisdiction to prosecute perpetrators regardless of where the crime was committed and ensures that these crimes do not fall under any statute of limitations, thus serving as a powerful deterrent against future violations.
This proposed step is seen as a necessary update to the international legal system to keep pace with the complexities of modern conflicts, where civilians are increasingly being used as political and military bargaining chips, calling for a firm and unified international response.
