"...are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Murder; extermination; torture; rape; political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice."

A quoted by Guy Horton in Dying Alive - A Legal Assessment of Human Rights Violations in Burma：

危害人類罪的初次應用，是在第二次世界大戰後對戰犯的審判。