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Abstract: The International Criminal Court (ICC), established in 2002, was authorized to prosecute crimes under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Since the Genocide Convention authorized every state to prosecute the crime of Genocide as narrowly defined, the rights and claims of Indigenous peoples are left to be prosecuted by states' courts. Impunity For Genocide Since the states are often the perpetrators of crimes claimed by indigenous peoples, virtually no prosecutions have been undertaken by the International Criminal Court or state courts. Since 1945, more than 160 claims of genocide involving mass violence against Indigenous peoples have been documented.
Abstract: The destruction of a group by a process of forced conversion or assimilation, wherein the identity of a protected group, be it national, ethnic, racial, or religious, is eradicated and replaced with another identity is not covered by the prevailing definition of the 'mens rea' of the crime of genocide, which requires that a perpetrator intend the physical or biological destruction of a protected group. This article argues that genocide has been inaccurately applied by international courts, based on an incorrect interpretation of the Genocide Convention that has dominated international law for twenty years, and discusses what non-physical/biological destruction of a group looks like in practice. The article proposes that events in Ukraine give the International Criminal Court, which has yet to definitively interpret the crime of genocide, an opportunity to correct this legal error and thereby ensure that genocide offers better protection to groups from destruction.
Abstract: Genocidio es varias cosas al mismo tiempo: 1) un crimen codificado en la Convención de Naciones Unidas de 1948; 2) un término analítico desarrollado por académicos en distintas disciplinas; y, 3) un concepto vernacularizado que adoptan, habitan y despliegan de diversas formas individuos, grupos de víctimas y actores políticos. En los usos del término anida siempre una paradoja que me propongo desgranar en este artículo. Por un lado, permite que quienes sufrieron la violencia se reconozcan, nombren, y se entiendan como parte de una historia común. Facilita la visibilización y articulación de demandas de justicia y reparación al grupo que ha sido objeto de persecución. Sin embargo, en la medida que el crimen genocida conlleva necesariamente la designación de un grupo perpetrador y un grupo víctima, su recuerdo naturaliza y perpetúa en el tiempo las arbitrarias demarcaciones creadas o exacerbadas por los ideólogos y ejecutores de la violencia (por ejemplo: «alemanes» y «judíos, «hutus» y «tutsis», «serbios» y «bosnios»). Este ensayo introduce la historia del concepto y explora sus efectos sobre subjetividades, la transmisión intergeneracional y las relaciones inter-grupales.
Abstract: The present article discusses victimization, perpetration, and denial in mass atrocities, using four recent case studies from Southeast Asia. The four cases include Indonesia (in which hundreds of thousands died in anti-Communist violence), Cambodia (in which the Khmer Rouge killed more than one million civilians), East Timor (in which more than one hundred thousand civilians died during the Indonesian occupation), and Myanmar (in which the state/army is accused of genocide toward the Rohingyas). Our aim is to bring a psychological lens to these histories, with a focus on three processes relevant to genocide. We examine, first, how the victims were targeted; second, how the perpetrators were mobilized; and third, the denial, justification, meaning-making, and commemoration of the atrocities. We propose a novel theoretical model, TOPASC: A Theory of the Psychology of Atrocities in Societal Contexts, highlighting the psychology of atrocities as involving factors across the macro, meso, and micro contexts. We introduce a new model, "TOPASC: A Theory of the Psychology of Atrocities in Societal Contexts," to explain why people justify mass killings and why certain group members are consistently targeted. In our model, we explore how mass atrocities against specific groups are influenced by psychological dynamics in intergroup situations which, in turn, are shaped by socio-historical contexts and individual psychologies. To illustrate these ideas, we analyze four cases of mass atrocities in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Cambodia, East Timor, and Myanmar. These cases highlight how different social groups, characterized by diverse ideologies, ethnicities, genders, or religions, exhibit varying vulnerabilities as perpetrators or victims based on their social and power status. Mass atrocities are not sudden occurrences but rather result from a series of complex processes and events.
Abstract: Intergenerational trauma - trauma relating to the genocide that affects younger generations who did not directly experience it - remains a challenge for mental-health services in Rwanda. [...]a decade old and launched by the UK-based charity Aegis Trust in Nottingham, this programme invites Rwandan scholars to submit research proposals; external researchers support them with advice and expertise to get the works published in international venues, such as peer-reviewed journals. Much of the research on the genocide against the Tutsi has neglected the testimonies of survivors, particularly women, says Noam Schimmel, a scholar of international studies and human rights at the University of California, Berkeley.
Abstract: Researchers from social and political scientists to mental-health specialists, geneticists and neuroscientists have investigated the event and its aftermath in a way that hadn't been possible for previous atrocities. Each genocide is unique, says Timothy Longman, a political scientist at Boston University in Massachusetts, who first went to Rwanda in 1992 and returned in 1995 as a researcher with Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organization that was one of the first to investigate the event. With few available resources, Rwanda had to build up its mental-health services and it has gained unique experience in responding to the atrocity's aftermath. Munyandamutsa returned quickly to Rwanda to work at the country's sole psychiatric hospital, where he began training mental-health responders and psychiatrists.
Abstract: Scholarly works on the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis have been too generic with minimal focus on institutional violence in the former state institutions, corporate organizations, and administrative units. Therefore, this paper addresses this knowledge gap by focusing on the former state institution— Caisse Sociale du Rwanda (CSR) as a case study. The research adopted a qualitative approach, with primary data being collected through structured and semi-structured interviews, which were administered to 62 participants, and data collection methods were structured and semi-structured interviews, observation methods, and secondary sources. Findings show the institutionalization of violence through different political periods. Legitimizing exclusion in CSR was inseparable from the state’s ethnic divide between the Hutu and Tutsi.
Abstract: The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s historic judgment in the Akayesu Judgment established that rape and other forms of sexual violence can be an actus reus of genocide as defined by the United Nations Convention on Genocide Article II. The Akayesu Judgment therefore provides a logical framework to analyze a hidden episode of extreme post-colonial state violence in the newly independent Zimbabwe, namely a state policy of mass atrocities in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands, targeting the minority Ndebele ethnic group during Operation Gukurahundi . The specific foci of this study are the patterns of mass rape and sexual violence in the military operation between 1983 and 1984 in Matabeleland. Drawing on 36 in-depth interviews with survivors from throughout Matabeleland, this study provides a critical new lens on Operation Gukurahundi through its identification of uniform systematic patterns of rape and other forms of sexual violence across Matabeleland. The article concludes that the patterns of rape and other forms of sexual violence identified in this study are indicative of a state policy of systematic genocidal rape between 1983 and 1984, deployed with the intent and effect to destroy, in part, a specific ethnic group, namely the minority Ndebele of Zimbabwe, thereby fulfilling every condition of the Genocide Convention principles of genocide.
Abstract: [...]here I was in 2022, touching an iron gate, gazing at a barbed wire fence that seemed to extend into forever during a study trip to Auschwitz with 19 medical students, courtesy of passionate donors to the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine (OUWB), MI, USA. A vast cemetery, a landscape of ironic calm and even trees in a place where genocide of European Jewry (the “Final Solution”) and the mass murder of other populations, such as the Sinti and Roma persecuted by the Nazi regime, was perpetrated with pervasive complicity of the medical–scientific establishment. Physicians were involved in antisemitic persecution and dismissal of Jewish doctors, forced sterilisation, the murder (termed “euthanasia”) of individuals with mental and physical disabilities, and horrific experimentation linked to prestigious universities. Bring your stethoscope, technical skills, and knowledge to that patient in the hospital bed.
Abstract: The internal Yugoslav massacres and genocide committed during the Second World War left the postwar Yugoslav state with a complicated legacy. How could the new authorities rebuild the country, drawing on the heroic memory of the victories of the communist-led partisans against the wartime occupiers and collaborators, while at the same time explaining the large-scale war crimes and genocide committed by Yugoslavs against other Yugoslavs? This article surveys the ways in which the internal Yugoslav war crimes were described and explained as part of public memory of the Second World War in Socialist Yugoslavia. It explores how the history of massacres and genocide coexisted with the glorious partisan myth and how the history of these massacres in a way contributed to creating a usable memory out of the Second World War. Moreover, it shows how wartime memory was profoundly changed when the history of internal Yugoslav massacres was increasingly understood as part of what Jasna Dragovic-Soso has called a ‘theme of genocide’ during the last decades of the socialist state. The article suggests that the thematisation may have been a logical and necessary rethinking of Second World War history. Yet, it also argues that the substantial revisiting of this history was sometimes accompanied by irresponsible manipulation which contributed to enabling highly problematic types of memory politics both during and after Yugoslavia's existence.
Abstract: In the context of mass atrocities, the legitimacy of institutions for international justice-such as the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice-is based on the assumption that they vindicate demands for accountability by the survivors of horrific human rights violations. Yet, notwithstanding advances in victim representation at these Hague-based courts, victim-centered justice remains elusive. This article contributes to centering the voices of survivors in their specific cultural contexts, against the backdrop of existing efforts that too often render invisible their perspectives. Through semi-structured interviews, conducted in late 2022, with 444 Rohingya survivors of genocide who have fled Myanmar to refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, we attempt to convey the priorities of these survivors situated within their cultural understanding of justice. We contextualize the empirical data gathered from the survey within Rohingyas' lived experiences of persecution in Myanmar, their cultural framings of communal justice, and their current reality of prolonged displacement in refugee camps in Bangladesh. The article concludes by describing the implications of this survey's findings on future engagement of the Rohingya in international justice processes, and a wider reflection on how grassroots perspectives can and should shape the global justice discourse.
Abstract: Forensic anthropologists have been involved in investigating genocide and crimes against humanity for many decades. Raphael Lempkin first coined the term “genocide” in 1944, and in 1946, the United Nations General Assembly codified it as an independent crime. However, there has not been a systematic review available to better understand the history of many of these atrocities. Moreover, many of these events have not been discussed outside the cultures and individuals affected. This targeted literature review will discuss work on historic, lesser-known, modern genocides, and finally, the humanitarian forensic work being conducted in the field and digitally. Such events discussed include Herero and Namaqua, Sayfo, Armenian, Holodomor, Nanking (Nanjing), Romani, Palestinian, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sikh, and Rohingya genocides. Work being done in this important sector of research is a critical development for not only recognizing these crimes but also for documenting and protecting the evidence of these human rights violations.
Abstract: The paper is focused on the analysis of the lessons learned from the genocides in the 20th century for the existing situation in Ukraine. Apart from the short overview of the history behind the term genocide and the adoption of the convention for its prevention and punishment in the post-World War II period, the paper explores the main specifics of the selected genocides (Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Yugoslavia). On the basis of the identified specifics, several conclusions and lessons have been drawn, including the expectation that mass atrocities will happen again and that international justice is often slow and deals with a limited number of perpetrators.
Abstract: The author analyzes certain questions about determining the responsibility of states under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the latest cases that are being considered before the International Court. Special attention is paid to the decisions of the Court in the cases of Gambia v. Myanmar and Ukraine v. Russian Federation, and to the interpretation of the provisions of the Genocide Convention related to the establishment of the jurisdiction of the Court. In this context, questions of a preliminary nature, such as the existence of a dispute between the parties, the jurisdiction of the Court ratione personae, erga omnes obligations arising from the Convention, the jus standi of the parties before the Court, the relationship between Articles VIII and IX of the Convention, as well as the issue of the use of force to prevent or punishing genocide. In the author's opinion, despite the fact that the analyzed cases have not yet been decided on the merits, the decisions made so far will have a significant impact on the correct and effective application of the Convention on Genocide in the future, in terms of clarifying the prerequisites for establishing the jurisdiction of the Court, as well as preserving the fundamental principles of international rights and rules on the responsibility of states.
Abstract: Existing work seeks explanations for state repression mainly in domestic factors such as ethnic/religious cleavages, poverty and inequality, struggle for power, regime type and quality of state institutions, lack of loyalty, demand for scapegoats, and cultural or psychological traits of perpetrators. How foreign influences shape state repression has been given less attention. Furthermore, the focus of the empirical literature has been largely cross-country, leaving much local variation unexplained. In this article, I examine how far foreign interests can explain the local (spatial) variation of deportations and massacres during the Armenian genocide. Between 1915 and 1917 the Ottoman Empire carried out a massive campaign of state repression (deportations and massacres) against its Armenian population. There was meaningful variation across Ottoman provinces in the intensity of this campaign, that is, some provinces experienced more repression than others. I investigate the determinants of this spatial variation. My empirical analysis is guided by a rationalist (economic) model where deportation is a tool to stifle Armenian calls for independence, but the benefit and cost of deportation vary spatially. For example, deportation is costlier (i.e. the risk of foreign intervention is greater) in locations where foreign economic and military interests are threatened by the departure of Armenians. In line with the model’s predictions, my empirical analysis indicates that there were fewer deportations in places where Armenians worked for the German-owned railway.
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