Genocide Convention Research Articles

How to Avoid the Genocide Trap. Genocide as a concept in historiography and social sciences

This article argues that instead of using inconsistent and often tautological ad hoc definitions from social sciences and the humanities, the legal notion of genocide as it emerges from the Genocide Convention and the jurisprudence of international criminal tribunals should also be applied to historical atrocities. This helps to prevent the inflationary use of the term ‘genocide’, whose inevitable consequence is that this term is voided of any meaning. Using instead the legal concept makes it possible to disentangle genocidal from non-genocidal violence and to prevent this notion from becoming obsolete. Three examples from German colonial history in Africa illustrate the need for such an approach.

The topic of restitution in UN-Documentation following WW II

Based on an examination of the relevant UN-Documentation, this report identifies four notable instances of the topic of restitutions and reparations for victims of the Third Reich appearing as a topic of interest for UN bodies: the provisions made in the interest of refugees as part of the Paris Agreement, the discussion surrounding the draft of the Genocide Convention, as well as the legislative involvement of the International Refugee Organization (IRO) and the Secretary General of the UN (Sec-Gen) in the (later) Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The funds created by the Paris Agreement are, probably, of the least interest, since they were conceived more as immediate relief than as individualized reparation. The discussion surrounding the Genocide Convention is interesting from a historical standpoint, as it attests an early and acute awareness of the underlying issues. However, any discussion addressing the restitution and reparation of victims of genocide did not find its way into the Convention. The involvement of the IRO with the Office of the Military Government for Germany, United States (OMGUS) and the FRG, which resulted in the drafting of specific laws on the matters of restitution and reparation, is perhaps the most interesting of the instances noted here. Potentially, the IRO played a significant role in the move towards restitution during the short years of its existence. Further investigations based on sources other than UN Documentation could reveal the extent to which the IRO was materially involved in the drafting of specific laws. The efforts of the Sec-Gen towards the reparation of victims of “medical” experimentation provides great insight into the process by which one such issue was discovered and addressed within the UN at the time. Beyond that, this is an instance in which there is a deeper understanding of the specific involvement of a UN-body with German reparatory legislation. In this case, it amounted to bringing up the issue and urging appropriate action without much involvement in the particulars of the resulting measures. Overall, it should be summarized that there was no consolidated or systematic effort towards the restitution of victims of the Third Reich on the parts of the UN. Rather, the issue appeared and reappeared with some frequency and only in certain cases did the UN take action.

Global food security crisis of the world in 2022

The article describes how the war in Ukraine immediately affected global food markets, due to the fact that Ukraine and Russia are global players in agricultural products such as wheat, corn or sunflower oil and seeds that are important for food security. It is determined that the war in Ukraine could provoke food riots in unstable African countries. This situation in Ukraine is already leading to rising food prices and a shortage of major crops in parts of Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. The study updates that the world’s global food system is under threat as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine endangers one of the world’s biggest breadbaskets. It is determined that given the significant share of Ukraine’s exports in the world market of sunflower oil, failures in its supplies have significant consequences for major importers of sunflower oil, namely India, the European Union, China, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Turkey. The article proves the legality of the decision of the International Court of Justice as a temporary measure, because Russia is a party to the Genocide Convention, and thus its consent is automatic to the resolution of disputes under this Convention in the International Court of Justice. Three key channels have been identified that will follow the economic consequences of the world war in terms of food and economic security. The article formulates the possible main directions of the global economic recovery of the world through Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. The disruption of food exports caused by the military invasion of Ukraine exposes global food markets to increased risks of declining availability, unmet demand for imports and rising international food prices.

Problems of the legal qualification of the crime of genocide

It has beеn exаmined the problеms of thе lеgal quаlification of thе crimе of gеnocide in the аrticle. It wаs determinеd thаt it is not еasy to provе gеnocide, from а legаl point of viеw thе dеfinition of gеnocide is vеry nаrrow. It is determinеd thаt thе courts must infеr thе intеnt of criminаls bаsed on thеir conduct, thаt is, it is nеcessary to rеly on circumstаntial evidеnce thаt must bе bеyond а reаsonable doubt. Proving gеnocide tаkes a long time to invеstigate аnd prove not just intеnt to kill, but killing pеople becаuse thеy wеre pаrt of а group. It was determined that, in fact, it is not the number of victims that decides whether genocide is or not, but the intention to physically destroy a group is the main criterion for this crime. It has been described the existing genocides in the history of mankind, recognized today by the court at the international level, and has been provided legal conclusions in the article. It was concluded that regarding the issue of defining Russia’s crimes against Ukraine as genocide, the world community is currently divided in its opinions. Some believes that genocide is taking place in Ukraine, pointing out that there is evidence of murders of people for belonging to Ukraine. Others point out that it is too early to define Russian atrocities as belonging to this category because the evidence is still too unclear given the strict wording of the Genocide Convention. It has been updated that the world legal science and practice are waiting for the Ukrainian government to provide carefully collected, recorded and documented evidence to confirm various signs of genocide according to the legal definition of international law.

The Physical, Biological and Cultural Dimensions of Genocide: An Expansive Interpretation of the Crime?

This paper deconstructs the definition of genocide provided for by Article II of the Genocide Convention with a view to assessing whether an expanding scope of the crime is possible. The current definition of genocide does not seem to correspond with the original conception of the term, which finds its roots in Raphael Lemkin’s writings, the “father” of the Genocide Convention. Lemkin envisaged three forms of genocide, namely physical, biological, and cultural, so as to convey a concrete idea of the number of faces that genocide could show over time. The drafters of the Genocide Convention largely discussed the three-dimensional structure of genocide, which, in the end, did not reach a consensus when pondering the inclusion of a cultural component within the so-called crime of crimes. This notwithstanding, there are still some remnants of the cultural dimension within the current definition of genocide, although it reads differently as initially envisioned. In addition, this paper introduces the reader to some of the examples that in recent years have dealt explicitly or implicitly with the question of ‘cultural genocide’, whose definition has never been clearly determined. This is certainly problematic inasmuch as there is no unanimity in the scope of the term, as was evidenced throughout the discussions which preceded the adoption of the Genocide Convention. Broadly speaking, the notion of ‘cultural genocide’ appears to refer to an intent to destroy, entirely, or partially, the cultural traits which characterise the modus vivendi of a certain group, encompassing both tangible and intangible attributes. In this regard, this article also considers different alternatives which might circumvent the strict definition of genocide in order to subsume similar offences against the cultural characteristics of a group within other serious crimes under international law.

Everyday genocide: femicide, transicide and the responsibility to protect

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to establish a conceptual connection between gender-based violence (GBV) and genocide. Victims of gendercide, such as femicide and transicide, should be eligible for protections assigned to victims of genocide, including the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).Design/methodology/approachThis study examines genocide, gendercide, femicide, transicide and the R2P doctrine to formulate a platform of engagement from which to argue the alignment and congruence of genocide with gendercide. Using a content analysis of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees definition of GBV, and Article II of the Genocide Convention (GC) five “directive” facets are examined, namely, identity, physical violence, psychological violence, oppressive violence and repressive violence.FindingsExpressions of physical violence, psychological violence, oppressive violence and repressive violence reflected similarity, whereas the GCs omit sex and gender as facets of identity group inclusion. The only variation is the encapsulation of identity factors included in the acts of harm.Practical implicationsThe elevation of gendercide to the status of genocide would permit us the leverage to make it not only illegal to permit gendercide – internationally or in-country – but make it illegal not to intervene, too.Social implicationsDeliberate harm based on sex and gender are crimes against people because of their real or perceived group membership, and as such, should be included in genocide theory and prevention.Originality/valueThis study explores a new conceptual basis for addressing gendercidal violence nationally to include sex and gender victim groups typically excluded from formal parameters of inclusion and address due to limitations in Article II. The analysis of genocide alongside GBV may inform scholars and activists in the aim to end gendered violence.

The International Court of Justice as a “Shortcut” to Identifying Custom

Abstract A frequently used shortcut to identifying rules of customary international law is to rely on statements by the International Court of Justice instead of conducting a more cumbersome investigation of state practice and opinio iuris. The purpose of this article is to consider when the Court’s statements align or may come to align with customary rules and, consequently, to what extent this shortcut is justified. Its value is in systematically exploring ideas that international lawyers may already have internalised; it may also help students of the subject to understand why reliance is placed on judicial decisions. Often, the Court simply elucidates pre-existing customary rules. But examples such as Factory at Chorzów, Fisheries, and Reservations to the Genocide Convention suggest that an additional or alternative justification for the shortcut may be stronger. This is the tendency of states to endorse or “ratify” statements by the Court through subsequent practice and opinio iuris.

Interventionist or internationalist? Coercion, self-determination, and humanitarianism in Third World practice

This article argues that contemporary debates around intervention, and especially humanitarian intervention, have misunderstood the meaning of these concepts in Cold War international society. By comparing a specific kind of humanitarian interventionism with a specific kind of internationalism, that of a revolutionist strain of Third World practice, it shows that existing studies have paid too little attention to discursive entanglements of coercion, self-determination, and humanitarianism. The Angola case provides a significant illustration: in 1975 the problem of intervention comes to be tied not just to dictatorial interference, but to a logic of self-determination, which is itself tied to causes of anticolonialism and anti-racism. It is too easy to say that the period’s rules of non-intervention precluded the legitimate coercive prevention of atrocities and related international crimes. Particular practices of internationalism, linked to the promotion of self-determination, provided a basis for enforcing international human rights treaties, including the Genocide Convention. All this seems very different from what we usually know of the legitimacy of saving strangers and the character of Third World organising in the mid-20th century.

Reflecting on the Genocide Convention in its Eighth Decade

Abstract 9 December 2018 marked the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Genocide Convention by the United Nations General Assembly. Article 6 of the Convention explicitly grants adjudicatory jurisdiction to the territorial state and to an international penal tribunal. Yet, the textual content of the Article has not prevented other types of extraterritorial jurisdiction from applying to the crime, such as universal criminal jurisdiction. This article analyses the development of universal jurisdiction over the crime of genocide, and proposes that the main advancements occurred as a result of a number of key events in the 20th century. Providing a review of state practice and opinio juris, the article analyses how universal jurisdiction applies to genocide and outlines its scope.

Three days in December: Jewish human rights between the United Nations and the middle east in 1948

AbstractThe twin birth of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Genocide Convention in 1948 have received enormous scholarly attention in recent years. Yet historians have largely ignored how these legal projects intersected with that year’s war in Israel/Palestine. In this article, I push these two stories back into a single frame by examining the year-long efforts of one early human rights organization, the World Jewish Congress, to advance rights-claims on behalf of Middle Eastern Jewish communities imperiled by the regional repercussions of the war. The WJC’s record of activities affords us a direct window into contemporaneous activist understandings of the ties between the Holocaust and the Nakba, human rights and genocide, and international law and politics. More broadly, it reveals the intrinsic limits of early human rights advocacy in an emerging global system exclusively structured around nation states.

Prosecuting Crimes against Humanity and Genocide at the International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh: An Approach to International Criminal Law Standards

Bangladesh is recently prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and genocide committed in the Liberation War of 1971 via a domestically operated tribunal, namely the International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh (ICTB). Though the Tribunal is preceded under municipal law, its material jurisdiction, i.e., crimes against humanity and genocide, originated from international criminal law. Therefore, this study examines several legal obligations of the ICTB in defining crimes against humanity and genocide as the core international crimes. First, I discuss several legal flaws of the Tribunal by defining crimes against humanity and genocide under the ICTB Statute and jurisprudence. Second, I scrutinize the legal status of international (treaty and customary) laws in Bangladesh’s legal system. Third, by applying international criminal law standards, I focus on the idea that it is one of the obligations of Bangladesh to apply international criminal law definitions of genocide under the treaty obligation as the contracting parties to Genocide Convention 1948, and the ICC Statute 1998. Fourthly, I also discuss whether Bangladesh has any obligation to apply customary international law definition of crimes against humanity because crimes against humanity are considered jus cogens offenses in general international law, from which no derogation is permitted. Lastly, I conclude that Bangladesh Tribunal failed to fulfill its legal obligation to define international crimes under the treaty and customary laws and forward a way to be implemented to improve the legislative system of Bangladesh and harmonize it with international legislation.

Never Again: A Legal Chimarea?

This article examines the scope of the duty that arises from Article 1 of the Genocide Convention[1] (hereinafter, the Convention) that imposes on States the dual obligation to prevent and punish genocide as an international crime. The analysis will focus on the legal problems arising from the punishable acts of Article 3 which asserts a prophylactic framework regarding the crime of genocide. This article argues that Article 3 is fundamental to the obligation to prevent as well as punish since the prohibited acts are inchoate (meaning incomplete). If an act of genocide is legally conceived as incomplete, it can, in theory, be repressed in the spirit of the Convention.
 
 [1] “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” open for signature December 9, 1948, registration no. A/RES/3/260, http://un-documents.net/a3r260.htm.

Was Quashing the Maji-Maji Uprising Genocide? An Evaluation of Germany’s Conduct through the Lens of International Criminal Law

Abstract Recently, political actors in Tanzania have demanded compensation from Germany for colonial atrocities against various ethnic and religious groups during the Maji-Maji uprising (1905–1907). By analyzing first-hand archival records from Germany and Tanzania, this article examines whether German actions constitute genocide according to the Genocide Convention or the International Criminal Tribunals’ jurisprudence. The authors find strong evidence to support a claim of genocide, and assess the viability of potential compensation claims against Germany; they conclude, however, that such claims would meet significant obstacles due to the concept of state immunity for sovereign actions under international customary law, as well as case law of the International Court of Justice.

Updates to United Nations Genocide Convention

Updates to United Nations Genocide Convention

‘End the dominance of the Uyghur ethnic group’: an analysis of Beijing’s population optimization strategy in southern Xinjiang

ABSTRACT Chinese academics and politicians argue that Xinjiang’s ‘terrorism’ problem can only be solved by ‘optimizing’ its ethnic population structure. High ethnic minority population concentrations are considered a national security threat. ‘Optimizing’ such concentrations requires ‘embedding’ substantial Han populations, whose ‘positive culture’ can mitigate the Uyghur ‘human problem’. Scenarios that do not overburden the region’s ecological carrying capacity entail drastic reductions in ethnic minority natural population growth, potentially decreasing their populations. Population ‘optimization’ discourses and related policies provide a basis to assess Beijing’s ‘intent’ to destroy an ethnic minority population in part through birth prevention per the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention. The ‘destruction in part’ can be assessed as the difference between projected natural population growth without substantial government interference and reduced growth scenarios in line with population ‘optimization’ requirements. Based on population projections by Chinese researchers, this difference could range between 2.6 and 4.5 million lives by 2040.

Calculating the Souls of Black Folk

In 1995, there were nearly 50,000 children removed from their families into the New York City Administration for Children’s Services’ (ACS) foster care system.1 The NYC ACS’ forcible transfer of children from a protected group into another group may amount to genocide under Article 2(e) of the Genocide Convention if formal review can demonstrate an “intent to destroy” the group “as such” or at least “in part.” Rather than pursuing a citizen’s tribunal, or truth and reconciliation committee to assess the historic transfer of Black children to other groups during this period by the child welfare system, ACS has focused on collecting data from currently targeted populations in order to “predict who needs prevention” services. This paper examines the Family First Prevention Act’s legislative mandate to calculate the “souls of Black folks” and the geographies of predictive analytics developed to serve this aim. Using an abolitionist lens grounded in the epistemology offered by W. E. B. Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folks, this argument moves beyond the Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FAT) framework to propose strategies for dismantling the “new modes of surveillance and social control” manifested in NYC ACS’ preventive turn. I propose a Get Out mathematics drawing from Katherine McKittrick’s proposal to “count it out different” as the fugitive’s alternative to state sanctioned datafication.

Destroying Disability: Expanding Application of the Genocide Convention

Summary Disability is not a protected class under the Genocide Convention, even though disabled people across the world frequently face egregious human rights violations. Many of those practices should be considered genocide because they meet the criteria listed in the definition. In order to amount to genocide, an action must be committed with the intent to destroy a group, in whole or in part, by killing, causing serious harm, inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about destruction of the group, prevent births, or forcibly transfer children out of the group. Disabled people have been subjected to all these actions. By refusing to grant this group status as a protected class, the international community has allowed acts of genocide to continue into the twenty first century. To prevent future genocides against this group, and advance disability rights on a global scale, disabled people need the protections provided in the Genocide Convention.

The International Court of Justice and the Responsibility to Protect: Learning from the Case of The Gambia v. Myanmar

Abstract It is a commonplace in the R2P discourse to describe accountability measures as key means to implement the responsibility to protect. In particular, the International Criminal Court is regularly highlighted as a central actor, both in the literature, the annual R2P reports issued by the UN Secretary-General, and the subsequent debates in the UN General Assembly. Conspicuously absent from this conversation is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (icj). This article examines the potential role of the ‘World Court’, as The Gambia in November 2019 started a new case under the UN Genocide Convention against Myanmar before the icj. Analysing the limitations and prospects and existing icj case-law, the article concludes that the International Court of Justice can make an important and unique contribution to the responsibility to protect.

Dossier: Uyghur Women in China’s Genocide

In genocide, both women and men suffer. However, their suffering has always been different; with men mostly subjected to torture and killings, and women mostly subjected to torture and mutilation. These differences stem primarily from the perpetrators' ideology and intention to exterminate the targeted people. Many patriarchal societies link men with blood lineage and the group’s continuation, while women embody the group’s reproductivity and dignity. In the ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in East Turkistan, the ideology of Chinese colonialism is a root cause. It motivates the targeting of women as the means through which to destroy the reproductivity and the dignity of the people as a whole. It is a common misunderstanding to associate genocide with only mass killings, and the current lack of evidence for massacres has led some to prematurely conclude there is no genocide. But this overlooks the targeting of women, which is also a prominent part of the definition of genocide laid out in the Genocide Convention. State policy in China intentionally targets Uyghur and other Turkic women in multiple ways. This dossier is focused on analyzing China’s targeted policies against Uyghur women and their “punishment,” as rooted in part in ancient Chinese legalist philosophy. In doing so, this dossier contributes toward further exposing Chinese colonialism and the genocidal intent now in evidence.

Raphaël Lemkin, Genocide, Colonialism, Famine, and Ukraine

Many words have been used to name and describe the Great Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33, including “famine” and “catastrophe,” “the Holodomor,” and now “genocide.” Was the famine genocide? Was the famine part of a genocide? Is the word genocide an exaggeration? Is naming the famine a genocide part of an attempt to dramatize events for political purposes today? Is the refusal to call the famine a genocide an act of genocide denial? This article argues that, though more than seven decades have passed and the Soviet Union has come and gone, questions about genocide in Ukraine remain intertwined in the discourses and narratives surrounding conflicts over Ukraine’s economic, political, social, and cultural position between the European Union and the Russian Federation. Given the implications of this word—“genocide”—within the context of current conflicts over Ukrainian history and identity and even sovereignty, it is important to reflect on how this concept has been used and applied. This paper analyzes conflict in Ukraine in the 1930s using Raphaël Lemkin's definition of genocide, as opposed to the legal definition established by the UN Genocide Convention, and discusses the conceptual strengths of Lemkin's definition of genocide in terms of understanding a wide-spectrum of oppressive, repressive, and violent processes of empire-building and colonization that occurred in Ukraine, and which culminated in the Holodomor.