How do crimes against humanity differ from genocide?

In international criminal law, both crimes against humanity and genocide represent grave atrocities, but they are distinguished primarily by the perpetrator's intent and the target of the violence.1

• Crimes Against Humanity: These consist of specific acts—such as murder, enslavement, torture, or rape—committed as part of a "widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population". These crimes do not require a specific intent to destroy a particular group; rather, they focus on the nature of the attack against civilians.21
• Genocide: This is defined by the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such. While genocide often involves mass murder, it also includes acts like preventing births or forcibly transferring children to achieve the destruction of that specific group.31

While their definitions may overlap in practice, the legal distinction remains that genocide requires the targeted destruction of a group based on its identity, whereas crimes against humanity do not require such specific discriminatory intent.1