5 Controversies on Genocide (...but not the only five.)

by Michelle

Published October 03, 2008 @ 08:30PM PST

Genocide is far from a straight-forward concept, and like anything else in the political realm, is mired in disagreements, misuse, and controversies. The common thread? Each of these controversies stands in the way of meaningful action to end genocide, once and for all.

The UN Definition: A Political Compromise

The UN Definition of genocide, encoded into international law by Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (commonly, the Genocide Convention), is widely regarded by scholars and human rights activists as insufficiently narrow. In fact, the UN first defined genocide more broadly, closer to Raphael Lemkin's conception of the term. In a resolution passed in December 1946 (expertly scanned and available on the UN website), the UN General Assembly called genocide a "denial of the right of existence of entire human groups."

However, two years later, political calculations of UN member states resulted in a restricted definition in the Genocide Convention-the international legal definition-which limits acts of genocide to "national, ethnical, racial or religious group(s)." Most notably, reference to political or social groups was omitted at the behest of Joseph Stalin, who did not want his on-going purges in the USSR to fall under the definition of genocide.

Additional Resources

Facing History and Ourselves: "Raphael Lemkin: Exploring Lemkin's Actions: The Invention of the Word ‘Genocide'"

BBC News Analysis: Defining Genocide

Overuse: Everything is Genocide

Various political actors are often quick to accuse opponents of genocide without due consideration of the concept and its consequences-for shock value, or demonization of the opposition, presumably. For example, Zimbabwean President (or rather, Dictator Extraordinaire) Robert Mugabe referred to international sanctions on his government as "genocide" when speaking at the United Nations General Assembly. a BBC analysis notes that Georgia and Russia are  "making ever graver accusations against each other," engaging in a war of words as the conflict escalates on the ground in South Ossetia, and human rights investigators work to determine the validity of any such claims.

Use of  "genocide" to describe any instance of mass death or suffering risks further trivialization of the term. While all occurrences of human suffering are horrific in their own right, using genocide as a blanket, attention-drawing term is counter-productive on many levels-a definition needs some degree of specificity in order to accurately portray the situation at hand, and the propagation of the phrase threatens to relegate it into meaninglessness.

Additional Resources

PBS Frontline: The Crime of Genocide

Under-use: It's Never a Genocide

Though the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust motivated the international community to incorporate a definition and subsequent obligations into international law, the UN and individual nations have been notoriously slow in recognizing and responding to genocide. International condemnation of genocide as a hypothetical concept has not yet been matched by the political will to intervene in actual cases.

Much has been written on the failure of the international community to prevent and respond to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the planning of which was revealed to UN forces months before the killings began. Then-US President Bill Clinton apologized to Rwanda on behalf of the international community for the failure to intervene, but as The Guardian columnist John Ryle points out, after the ambush of U.S. Army Rangers in Somalia (famously, if not artfully, memorialized in the movie Black Hawk Down), "non-intervention was US policy, not an oversight."

In the case of Darfur, which was first recognized as genocide by the United States in 2005, the UN and its member states have yet to take the steps necessary to bring the conflict to an end.

Additional Resources

Chairman of Independent Inquiry into United Nations Actions During 1994 Rwanda Genocide Presents Report to Security Council (Press Release)

"He Rang the Alarm on Darfur" by Nicholas Kristof (New York Times)

Historical Cases of Genocide: Latter-day Deniers

Critics and deniers constantly seek to disprove even the most clear-cut, widely-accepted cases of genocide. The political consequences of Turkey's ardent refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide, conducted by the Ottoman Empire from 1915-1918, persist today: In 2007, the Turkish government threatened to end its assistance to the U.S. military in Iraq if the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the killing of the Armenians.

Most often, denial represents a perpetuation of the racist genocidal ideology that served as the basis for the killings in the first place. Denial of the Holocaust frequently features in anti-Semitic propaganda-what the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) calls, "anti-Semitism masquerading as history."

The internet, in particular, allows for the proliferation of dubious "resources" on genocide, and particularly on the Holocaust; needless to say, one should use excess caution when researching and reading about genocide on the internet.

Additional Resources

Anti-Defamation League on Holocaust Denial

The Telegraph (UK): "Turkey angered over France genocide denial move"

Post-Genocide Justice

The crime of genocide is massive in scale and horrific in intent, requiring a coordinated effort from top leadership down to "foot soldiers."  Given the scale and complex nature of the atrocities, achieving any semblance of justice in their aftermath remains an extraordinary challenge. The international and domestic mechanisms created to respond to this need-the trials of Nuremberg, the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court, the Rwanda gacaca and national courts, other national trials under universal jurisdiction, and truth commissions-remain woefully inadequate and extraordinarily controversial.

Central among many contested issues surrounding post-genocide justice are questions such as: Should "justice" be pursued in the first place? If so, through what mechanism? If trials are pursued, who should be tried, and who should conduct the trials? How much will it cost, and who will pay for it? What impact will it have, and is it worth it? These simplistic rhetorical questions represent a complex and perpetual debate, which will likely never produce satisfactory answers.

Additional Resources

International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ): What is Transitional Justice?

ICTJ: "Against the Current: War Crimes Prosecutions in Serbia"