The Treatment of Aporophobia in the Statute of the International Criminal Court: Special Attention to Discriminatory Attacks against Street Dwellers

Abstract

This work analyses how the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC Statute) and its Rules of Procedure and Evidence (RPE) deal with the violence suffered by street dwellers, homeless people, and those others in a situation of poverty, as a result of rejection, aversion or contempt by their aggressors (aporophobia). For this purpose, the notions of poverty, homelessness, street dweller and aporophobia are first analysed. Subsequently, the treatment of  this type of discriminatory violence in comparative criminal law (specially, in the USA and Spain) is briefly studied. 
Finally, the question of whether this type of discriminatory aggressions may amount to any of the crimes (in particular, 
genocide and crimes against humanity), or any of the aggravating circumstances, provided for in the ICC Statute and 
the RPE is addressed.