ABSTRACT
The construction of a racial identity is essentially the outcome of a number of collective experiences involving the creation of binary pairs or opposites. In international criminal law, the provisions on the crimes of genocide, apartheid, and persecution all include references to the concept of race. The concept of race has a physical connotation, originating in the highly contested idea of classifying individuals according to one or more phenotypical traits. The creation of the International Criminal Court as the first permanent treaty-based criminal court was of major significance, despite recent criticism concerning its seemingly biased prosecutorial selection of cases. Albeit contained in three legal provisions, the concept of race has never been comprehensively analysed for international criminal law. Since there has never been a criminal trial, let alone a conviction, for the crime of apartheid, its marginal role in international criminal law should be acknowledged. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
