GLOSSARY

Apartheid: from the South African regime to an international crime, two distinct definitions

Updated September 12, 2026

"Apartheid" first denotes a specific historical regime — South Africa from 1948 to 1994. But since 1973 it has also been a technical term of international law, with its own legal definition, applicable in principle to any situation meeting its elements, not only to that historical case. The two must be kept separate: this entry explains the second.

The historical origin

The Afrikaans term "apartheid" ("separateness") denotes the system of racial segregation institutionalised by law in South Africa from 1948, which classified the population by race and regulated by law residence, employment, education and political rights. South Africa remained a UN member throughout the regime; the international community responded by declaring the government's conduct illegitimate, suspending it from specialised agencies and imposing a mandatory arms embargo (Security Council Resolution 418, 1977), until the system collapsed in 1990–1994.

Codification as a standalone crime

The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1973, defines apartheid in Article II as "similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa" — an explicit extension beyond the South African case alone, applicable to any system of institutionalised domination of one racial group over another, sustained by inhuman acts committed to maintain it. The 1998 Rome Statute lists apartheid as a crime against humanity in Article 7, paragraphs 1(j) and 2(h). The two treaties together have been ratified by more than 160 States.

A recent case: the International Court of Justice's opinion

In its advisory opinion of 19 July 2024 on the occupied Palestinian territory, the International Court of Justice concluded that Israeli legislation and measures that segregate settler and Palestinian communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem breach Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which prohibits "racial segregation and apartheid." A clear technical distinction must be kept: the Court did not rule on the crime of apartheid as such under the 1973 Convention or the Rome Statute — treaties Israel has, in any case, never joined — but on a breach of CERD, which Israel has instead ratified. These are distinct legal standards, even though the text of Article 3 of CERD explicitly uses the word "apartheid."

A category not yet codified: gender apartheid

This site has already used the phrase "gender apartheid" in relation to Afghanistan, where the UN Special Rapporteur described in these terms the cumulative effect of the restrictions the Taliban have imposed on women. That is a different use from this entry: it is a category proposed by diplomats and jurists, not yet codified as a standalone crime in any treaty — the International Criminal Court, not by coincidence, had to resort to the closest available category, gender persecution (Art. 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute), precisely because "gender apartheid" is not yet a crime in its own right.

Sources: International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, 1973 — UN · Rome Statute, Art. 7 — ICC · International Court of Justice, advisory opinion of 19 July 2024

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