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Apartheid

Apartheid—an Afrikaans word meaning “separateness” (or literally “apart-hood”)—was the name given to the system of racial segregation and discrimination against indigenous African and other non-white populations in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.[1] To outlaw similar regimes, the “crime of apartheid” is defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as “inhumane acts […] 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.”[2] Israeli policies and practices against Palestinians have been widely compared to South African apartheid, while experts including UN Special Rapporteurs John Dugard and Richard Falk have both suggested that Israel's system could meet the definition of the crime of apartheid.[3][4]

Sources

  1. SA History. 2016. A History of Apartheid in South Africa
  2. ICC. 2002. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Art.7
  3. J. Dugard et al. 2013. Apartheid, International Law, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
  4. R. Falk et al. 2017. Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid