The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of Apartheid was adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in November 1973. The treaty was an attempt to criminalize racial separation and segregation policies such as those that had been imposed by South Africa's white minority government. Under the Convention, which now has more than one hundred states parties, the crime of apartheid refers to a series of inhuman acts—including murder, torture, arbitrary arrest, illegal imprisonment, exploitation, marginalization, and persecution—committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining the domination of one racial group by another. The Convention is particularly notable for its departure from the traditional rule of state sovereignty in that it authorizes the national courts of states parties to attribute individual criminal responsibility for the crime to both government leaders and their supporters in...