Genocide

Definition of Genocide ¹

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such: (article II Genocide Convention of 1948)
1. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
2. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
3. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
4. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Genocide is always justified as an act of self-defense
- They exist ⇒ they are a threat to us
- It’s a mobilizing mechanism to go to war against a group

Solutions that didn’t yield:
- diplomatic pressure, the UN resolutions, arms embargo, creation of international court to prosecute war criminals, UN peacekeepers, and “Safe Areas” designation.
  - Arms embargo hurt people who wanted to protect themselves
- Actions either counterproductive or there is no action at all.
- The Rwanda Genocide was ignored, acted too late; saves only whites, “Rwanda was simply insignificant to save”
- East Timor was saved only at the very spur of a small network of activists, that the West intervened.
  - Activists in Australian cities to gain attention and call for action
Attempts to challenge rules of genocide:
- state argued they want to maintain sovereignty and non-interference in one’s domestic affairs ⇒ So genocide shouldn’t be an international law
Responsibility to Protect (R2P): been gaining momentum
- Intervention from non-involving countries to stop genocide

Second Punic War, 5 Century BC (Carthaginians)
Native Americans Genocide
- American’s genocide on the Bisons, which is the source of food, clothing, and living for the Native Americans
The Armenian Genocide by the Turks
Nazi-Germany’s Holocaust led to the creation of the Genocide Convention ¹
- Also led to the creation of the term ‘Genocide’
Khmer Rouge: ECCC: Khieum Samphan and Nuon Chea guilty of genocide against Cham Muslim and ethnic Vietnamese communities
Against Ethnic Minority
- Rwanda: ICTR: Hutu extermination campaign against Tutsi ethnic minority with over 800,000 deaths
- Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis: majority Buddhists against minority Muslims
Bosnian Ethnic Cleansing
- ICTY: i.e. Ratko Mladié, former Commander of the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army; “Bosnian Serb Forces killed many Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats …”
  - former Yugoslavia
In War, indescriminate killing of civilians
- US’s Nuclear Weapons against Japan
  - US are the one who determine what is called genocide (Nuremburg Trials)
- Ukraine-Russia Conflict ²
  - Ukraine reported Russia to the ICJ about:
    - Russia “Manipulating the notion of genocide to justify aggression, halt the invasion and order Russia to pay reparations…”
  - International Criminal Court (ICC) are investigating Russia’s guilt
1971 Bangladesh Genocide