Alex de Waal and Bridget Conley. ‘What Justice for Starvation Crimes?’ in Jacqueline Bhabha, Margereta Matache and Caroline Elkins (eds.) Time for Reparations: A global perspective, (Univ. Pennsylvania Press, 2021).
This chapter begins by developing the concept of “starvation crimes.” This is a useful umbrella term that encompasses different kinds of acts prohibited under existing international regimes of law. Starvation crimes are a particularly heinous subset of political, economic, and military actions and policies that contribute to extreme hunger and famine, which must, in turn, be seen in the context of hazards such as drought and crop diseases. We delineate these distinctions to identify which acts of starvation would qualify for potential criminal prosecution and for the application of measures under the transitional justice umbrella.
