crime against humanity
crime against humanity. Int’l law. A brutal crime that is not an isolated incident but that involves large and systematic actions, often cloaked with official authority, and that shocks the conscience of humankind. • Among the specific crimes that fall within this category are mass murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts perpetrated against a population, whether in wartime or not. See Statute of the International Criminal Court, art. 3 (37 ILM 999).