Why Learn About Genocide?

The UN Convention’s definition of genocide is outlined as:

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• Killing members of the group
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

One of the key, arguable problems with the UN Convention’s definition regards the exclusion of political and social groups from criminal implications of these actions. This exclusion has caused much debate and criticism among scholars and governments

Another point of contention in this legal definition is the use of the word “intent.” As opposed to “motive,” the word “intent” diffuses the criteria under which a motive can be established.

A descriptive breakdown of how genocide unfolds can help determine the fault lines along which a society has polarized so that efforts toward restoration of the health of the community can be determined.

Questions such as the following are important to consider when studying a specific or comparative genocide:

• What is the general background of the society (its economic, cultural or political atmosphere) and what emerging violence has been perpetrated?
• Who are the perpetrators and their collaborators, who are the victims, rescuers and bystanders?
• What “plan” was implemented to commit mass murder and what were the means and results?  What has transpired since the atrocity to the survivors?
• Have there been trials, tribunals, transitional justice, or punishment of the criminals?
• Is there denial?
• What are the long-term repercussions?
• Finally, how can exploring these components of a mass atrocity lead to prevention in “at-risk” areas of the world?

Human rights concerns only entered into an era of international accountability with the end of World War II. The overwhelming evidence of Nazi crimes and the implementation of mass murder as state policy was a blatant violation of Articles 3 and 6 of the Atlantic Charter (1941), where it is declared that all people have a right to self-determination and freedom from fear in their own lands. A plan for the “Trial of European War Criminals” formulated into the London Charter, issued on August 8, 1945, which established the International Military Tribunal and defined laws and procedures for the trials.

The Nuremberg Trials

Held before the International Military Tribunal, three sets of trials ensued. The trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany, and are commonly referred to as the Nuremberg Trials. The first of these, the “Trial of the Major War Criminals,” tried 22 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany. The second set of trials included the “Doctors’ Trial” and “Judges’ Trial.”  The “Subsequent Trials” tried surviving members of military, political, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany.

The “Nuremberg Trials” directly influenced the development of international criminal law in the following areas:

• The trials served as a model for the UN Genocide Convention of 1948 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 as well as the International Law Commission’s report “Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Judgment of the Tribunal.”
• The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMFTE) (also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trials) was a second monumental international tribunal to address the mass crimes perpetrated by the leaders of Japan who had planned and directed the war. Based on the model charter set by the Nuremberg Trials, the IMFTE was established by special proclamation issued by General MacArthur on January 19, 1946.
• The Nuremberg Trials and Tokyo War Crimes Trials initiated a prompt movement for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court.

International Criminal Court

The ad hoc trials of the “International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ITCY)” (1993) and the “International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda” (1994) were established by the UN Security Council to try the leaders of the mass killings for these two genocides. At this same time, the International Law Commission commenced preparatory work for a permanent International Criminal Court.

Following years of negotiations the UN General Assembly convened a five-week diplomatic conference in Rome in June 1998, commonly known as “The Rome Statute” to “finalize and adopt a convention on the establishment of an international criminal court.” The ICC hosted its inaugural session of the court on March 1, 2003. The court issued its first arrest warrants on July 8, 2005. As of August 2010, 113 countries have joined the court, including nearly all of Europe and South America, and roughly half the countries of Africa. 35 sovereign nations have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. Three of these states—Israel, the United States and Sudan—have “unsigned” the Rome Statute, indicating that they no longer intend to become states parties, and, as such, have no legal obligations arising from their signature of the stature.

Transitional Justice

The field of transitional justice is relatively new, emerging in the wake of the Cold War. Transitional justice is often defined as “the process of redressing past wrongs committed in states shifting from a violent, authoritarian past toward a more liberal, democratic future. It is linked to a set of practices (prosecutions, truth commissions, memorialization, lustration and vetting, reparation, amnesties and pardons)” (Alexander Hinton, Transitional Justice / Global Mechanisms and Local Realities after Genocide and Mass Violence, 2010). Frictions in transitional justice methods often emerge out of the local realities vs. the global construct of systems designed to address mass atrocity crimes.