Opinion: The US has a ‘crimes against democracy’ problem

Scholars say that the identification of crimes against humanity began in the late 18th century with cries against the slave trade or against atrocities such as those in the Belgian Congo. The concept was recognized formally in 1915 when the Allied Powers issued a declaration condemning the mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. And of course they were formally prosecuted in the Nuremberg Trials after World War II. These are heinous crimes, often genocides, against a set of targeted people, and prosecuted at an international level. These actions were arguably legal under the regimes in which they were carried out but not in the eyes of the world.