The Full Wiki

Genocide: Map


Wikipedia article:

Map showing all locations mentioned on Wikipedia article:


The preamble to the CPPCG states that instances of genocide have taken place throughout history, but it was not until Raphael Lemkin coined the term and the prosecution of perpetrators of the Holocaust at the Nuremberg trialsmarker that the United Nations agreed to the CPPCG which defined the crime of genocide under international law.

There was a gap of more than forty years between the CPPCG coming into force and the first prosecution under the provision of the treaty. To date all international prosecutions of genocide, for the Rwandan Genocide, the Srebrenica Genocide, have been by ad hoc international tribunals. The International Criminal Court came into existence in 2002 and it has the authority to try people from the states that have signed the treaty, but to date it has not tried anyone.

Since the CPPCG came into effect in January 1951 about 80 member states of the United Nations have passed legislation that incorporates the provisions of the CPPCG into their municipal law, and some perpetrators of genocide have been found guilty under such municipal laws, such as Nikola Jorgic ,who was found guilty of genocide in Bosnia by a German court (Jorgic v. Germanymarker).


Another criticism of the CPPCG is that when its provisions have been invoked by the United Nations Security Council, they have only been invoked to punish those who have already committed genocide and been foolish enough to leave a paper trail. It was this criticism that led to the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1674 by the United Nations Security Council on 28 April 2006 commits the Council to action to protect civilians in armed conflict and to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.


Coining of the term genocide

The term "genocide" coined by Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in 1944, firstly from the Latin "gens, gentis," meaning "birth, race, stock, kind" or the Greek root génos (γένος) (same meaning); secondly from Latin -cidium (cutting, killing) via French -cide.

In 1933, Lemkin prepared an essay entitled the Crime of Barbarity in which genocide was portrayed as a crime against international law. The concept of the crime, which later evolved into the idea of genocide, originated with the experience of the Assyrians massacred in Iraqmarker on 11 August 1933. To Lemkin, the event in Iraq evoked "memories of the slaughter of Armenians" during World War I. He presented his first proposal to outlaw such "acts of barbarism" to the Legal Council of the League of Nations in Madrid the same year. The proposal failed, and his work incurred the disapproval of the Polish government, which was at the time pursuing a policy of conciliation with Nazi Germany.

In 1944, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published Lemkin's most important work, entitled Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, in the United States. This book included an extensive legal analysis of German rule in countries occupied by Nazi Germany during the course of World War II, along with the definition of the term genocide. Lemkin's idea of genocide as an offense against international law was widely accepted by the international community and was one of the legal bases of the Nuremberg Trialsmarker (the indictment of the 24 Nazi leaders specifies in Count 3 that the defendants "conducted deliberate and systematic genocide—namely, the extermination of racial and national groups...") Lemkin presented a draft resolution for a Genocide Convention treaty to a number of countries in an effort to persuade them to sponsor the resolution. With the support of the United States, the resolution was placed before the General Assembly for consideration. Defining genocide in 1943, Lemkin wrote:

Genocide as a crime

Under international law

In the wake of the Holocaust, Lemkin successfully campaigned for the universal acceptance of international laws defining and forbidding genocide. In 1946, the first session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that "affirmed" that genocide was a crime under international law, but did not provide a legal definition of the crime. In 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which legally defined the crime of genocide for the first time.

The CPPCG was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948 and came into effect on 12 January 1951 (Resolution 260 (III)). It contains an internationally-recognized definition of genocide which was incorporated into the national criminal legislation of many countries, and was also adopted by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide:

The first draft of the Convention included political killings, but the USSRmarker along with some other nations would not accept that actions against groups identified as holding similar political opinions or social status would constitute genocide, so these stipulations were subsequently removed in a political and diplomatic compromise.

Intent to destroy

In 2007 the European Court of Human Rightsmarker (ECHR), noted in its judgement on Jorgic v. Germany case that in 1992 the majority of legal scholars took the narrow view that "intent to destroy" in the CPPCG meant the intended physical-biological destruction of the protected group and that this was still the majority opinion. But the ECHR also noted that a minority took a broader view and did not consider biological, or physical destruction was necessary as the intent to destroy a national, racial, religious or ethnical group was enough to qualify as genocide.

In the same judgement the ECHR reviewed the judgements of several international and municipal courts judgements. It noted that International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslaviamarker and the International Court of Justicemarker had agreed with the narrow interpretation, that biological. or physical destruction was necessary for an act to qualify as genocide. The ECHR also noted that at the time of its the judgement, apart from courts in Germany which had taken a broad view, that there had been few cases of genocide under other Convention States municipal laws and that "There are no reported cases in which the courts of these States have defined the type of group destruction the perpetrator must have intended in order to be found guilty of genocide".

In part

The phrase "in whole or in part" has been subject to much discussion by scholars of international humanitarian law. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslaviamarker found in Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic - Trial Chamber I - Judgment - IT-98-33 (2001) ICTY8 (2 August 2001) that Genocide had been committed. In Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic - Appeals Chamber - Judgment - IT-98-33 (2004) ICTY 7 (19 April 2004) paragraphs 8, 9, 10, and 11 addressed the issue of in part and found that "the part must be a substantial part of that group. The aim of the Genocide Convention is to prevent the intentional destruction of entire human groups, and the part targeted must be significant enough to have an impact on the group as a whole." The Appeals Chamber goes into details of other cases and the opinions of respected commentators on the Genocide Convention to explain how they came to this conclusion.



CPPCG coming into force

After the minimum 20 countries became parties to the Convention, it came into force as international law on 12 January 1951. At that time however, only two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) were parties to the treaty: Francemarker and the Republic of Chinamarker. Eventually the Soviet Unionmarker ratified in 1954, the United Kingdommarker in 1970, the People's Republic of Chinamarker in 1983 (having replaced the Taiwan-based Republic of China on the UNSC in 1971), and the United Statesmarker in 1988. This long delay in support for the Genocide Convention by the world's most powerful nations caused the Convention to languish for over four decades. Only in the 1990s did the international law on the crime of genocide begin to be enforced.

Security Council responsibility to protect


Under municipal law

Since the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) came into effect in January 1951 about 80 member states of the United Nations have passed legislation that incorporates the provisions of the CPPCG into their municipal law.

Criticisms of the CPPCG and other definitions of genocide


Writing in 1998 Kurt Jonassohn and Karin Björnson stated that the CPPCG was a legal instrument resulting from a diplomatic compromise. As such the wording of the treaty is not intended to be a definition suitable as a research tool, and although it is used for this purpose, as it has an international legal credibility that other lack, other definitions have also been postulated. Jonassohn and Björnson go on to say that non of these alternative definitions have gained widespread support for various reasons.Kurt Jonassohn & Karin Solveig Björnson, Genocide and Gross Human Rights Violations in Comparative Perspective: In Comparative Perspective, Transaction Publishers, 1998, ISBN 0765804174, 9780765804174. pp. 133-135

Jonassohn and Björnson postulate that the major reason why no single generally accepted genocide definition has emerged is because academics have adjusted their focus to emphasise different periods and have found it expedient to use slightly different definitions to help them interpret events. For example Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn studied the whole of human history, while Leo Kuper and R. J. Rummel in their more recent works concentrated on the 20th century, and Helen Fein, Barbara Harff and Ted Gurr have looked at post World War II events. Jonassohn and Björnson are critical of some of these studies arguing that they are too expansive and concludes that the academic discipline of genocide studies is too young to have a canon of work on which to build an academic paradigm.


Barbara Harff and Ted Gurr defined genocide as "the promotion and execution of policies by a state or its agents which result in the deaths of a substantial portion of a group ...[when] the victimized groups are defined primarily in terms of their communal characteristics, i.e., ethnicity, religion or nationality." Harff and Gurr also differentiate between genocides and politicides by the characteristics by which members of a group are identified by the state. In genocides, the victimized groups are defined primarily in terms of their communal characteristics, i.e., ethnicity, religion or nationality. In politicides the victim groups are defined primarily in terms of their hierarchical position or political opposition to the regime and dominant groups. Origins and Evolution of the Concept in the Science Encyclopedia by Net Industries. states "Politicide, as [Barbara] Harff and [Ted R.] Gurr define it, refers to the killing of groups of people who are targeted not because of shared ethnic or communal traits, but because of 'their hierarchical position or political opposition to the regime and dominant groups' (p. 360)". But does not give the book title to go with the page number. Daniel D. Polsby and Don B. Kates, Jr. state that "... we follow Harff's distinction between genocides and 'pogroms,' which she describes as 'short-lived outbursts by mobs, which, although often condoned by authorities, rarely persist.' If the violence persists for long enough, however, Harff argues, the distinction between condonation and complicity collapses."


A major criticism of the international community's response to the Rwandan Genocide was that it was reactive, not proactive. The international community has developed a mechanism for prosecuting the perpetrators of genocide but has not developed the will or the mechanisms for intervening in a genocide as it happens. Critics point to the Darfur conflict and suggest that if anyone is found guilty of genocide after the conflict either by prosecutions brought in the International Criminal Court or in an ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal, this will confirm this perception.

International prosecution of genocide

By ad hoc tribunals

All signatories to the CPPCG are required to prevent and punish acts of genocide, both in peace and wartime, though some barriers make this enforcement difficult. In particular, some of the signatories — namely, Bahrainmarker, Bangladeshmarker, Indiamarker, Malaysiamarker, the Philippinesmarker, Singaporemarker, the United Statesmarker, Vietnammarker, Yemenmarker, and Yugoslavia — signed with the proviso that no claim of genocide could be brought against them at the International Court of Justicemarker without their consent. Despite official protests from other signatories (notably Cyprusmarker and Norwaymarker) on the ethics and legal standing of these reservations, the immunity from prosecution they grant has been invoked from time to time, as when the United States refused to allow a charge of genocide brought against it by Yugoslavia following the 1999 Kosovo War.


Nuremberg Trials

Because the universal acceptance of international laws, defining and forbidding genocide was achieved in 1948, with the promulgation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), those criminals who were prosecuted after the war in international courts, for taking part in the Holocaust were found guilty of crimes against humanity and other more specific crimes like murder. Nevertheless the Holocaust is universally recognized to have been a genocide and the term, that had been coined the year before by Raphael Lemkin, appeared in the indictment of the 24 Nazi leaders, Count 3, stated that all the defendants had "conducted deliberate and systematic genocide – namely, the extermination of racial and national groups..."


The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwandamarker (ICTR) is a court under the auspices of the United Nations for the prosecution of offenses committed in Rwandamarker during the genocide which occurred there during April, 1994, commencing on 6 April. The ICTR was created on 8 November 1994 by the Security Council of the United Nations in order to judge those people responsible for the acts of genocide and other serious violations of the international law performed in the territory of Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994.

So far, the ICTR has finished nineteen trials and convicted twenty five accused persons. Another twenty five persons are still on trial. Nineteen are awaiting trial in detention. Ten are still at large. The first trial, of Jean-Paul Akayesu, began in 1997. Jean Kambanda, interim Prime Minister, pleaded guilty.

Former Yugoslavia

The term Bosnian Genocide is used to refer either to the genocide committed by Serb forces in Srebrenicamarker in 1995, or to ethnic cleansing that took place during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War (an interpretation rejected by a majority of scholars).

In 2001 the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslaviamarker (ICTY) judged that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre was an act of genocide.

On 26 February 2007 the International Court of Justicemarker (ICJ), in the Bosnian Genocide Case upheld the ICTY's earlier finding that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide, but found that the Serbian government had not participated in a wider genocide on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war, as the Bosnian government had claimed.

On 12 July 2007, European Court of Human Rightsmarker when dismissing the appeal by Nikola Jorgic against his conviction for genocide by a German court (Jorgic v. Germany) noted that the German courts wider interpretation of genocide has since been rejected by international courts considering similar cases. The ECHR also noted that in the 21 century "Amongst scholars, the majority have taken the view that ethnic cleansing, in the way in which it was carried out by the Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to expel Muslims and Croats from their homes, did not constitute genocide. However, there are also a considerable number of scholars who have suggested that these acts did amount to genocide"

About 30 people have been indicted for participating in genocide or complicity in genocide during the early 1990s in Bosniamarker. To date after several plea bargains and some convictions that were successfully challenged on appeal only Radislav Krstić had been found guilty of complicity in genocide in an international court. Three others have been found guilty of participating in genocides in Bosnia by German courts, one of whom Nikola Jorgić lost an appeal against his conviction in the European Court of Human Rightsmarker. Several former members of the Bosnian Serb security forces are currently on trial in Bosnia and Herzegovina indicted on several charges including genocide.

Slobodan Milošević, as the former President of Serbia and of Yugoslavia was the most senior political figure to stand trial at the ICTY. He died on 11 March 2006 during his trial where he was accused of genocide or complicity in genocide in territories within Bosnia and Herzegovina, so no verdict was returned. In 1995 the ICTY issued a warrant for the arrest of Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić on several charges including genocide. On 21 July 2008 Karadžić was arrested in Belgrade, and he is currently in The Hague prison awaiting trial. Ratko Mladić is still at large.

By the International Criminal Court


Darfur, Sudan

The on-going conflict in Darfurmarker, Sudanmarker, which started in 2003, was declared a "genocide" by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell on 9 September 2004 in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Since that time however, no other permanent member of the UN Security Council has followed suit. In fact, in January 2005, an International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1564 of 2004, issued a report to the Secretary-General stating that "the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide." , 25 January 2005, at 4 Nevertheless, the Commission cautioned that "The conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the Government authorities, directly or through the militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region. International offences such asthe crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide."In March 2005, the Security Council formally referred the situation in Darfur to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, taking into account the Commission report but without mentioning any specific crimes. Two permanent members of the Security Council, the United Statesmarker and Chinamarker, abstained from the vote on the referral resolution. As of his fourth report to the Security Council, the Prosecutor has found "reasonable grounds to believe that the individuals identified [in the UN Security Council Resolution 1593] have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes," but did not find sufficient evidence to prosecute for genocide.

In April 2007, the Judges of the ICC issued arrest warrants against the former Minister of State for the Interior, Ahmad Harun, and a MilitiaJanjaweed leader, Ali Kushayb, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

On 14 July 2008, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC), filed ten charges of war crimes against Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. The ICC's prosecutors have claimed that al-Bashir "masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part" three tribal groups in Darfur because of their ethnicity. The ICC's prosecutor for Darfur, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is expected within months to ask a panel of ICC judges to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir.

Genocide in history

The preamble to the CPPCG not only states that "genocide is a crime under international law, contrary to the spirit and aims of the United Nations and condemned by the civilized world", but that "at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity".

Determining which historical events constitute genocide and which are merely criminal or inhuman behavior is not a clear-cut matter. Furthermore, in nearly every case where accusations of genocide have circulated, partisans of various sides have fiercely disputed the interpretation and details of the event, often to the point of promoting wildly different versions of the facts. An accusation of genocide is certainly not taken lightly and will almost always be controversial. Revisionist attempts to deny or challenge genocides (mainly the Holocaust) are, in some countries, illegal.

Since the dawn of humanity, people have subdued or eradicated neighbouring tribes, languages, religions, and cultures. The fifteenth century inception of transoceanic travel however brought into contact peoples with no common history. From the sixteenth century advent of colonialism, Caucasians applied Terra Nullius and in doing so nearly annihilated the American Indian and the Australian Aborigines. With the rise of Caucasian mercantilism in the seventeenth century came mass enslavement, which severed Sub-Saharan Africans, South Asians , and others from their cultural heritages. From the eighteenth century, Caucasians expanded to further colonize most of Asia, Africa, and Oceania. From the nineteenth century, proponents of Social Darwinism saw a scientific mandate to promote racialism towards eugenics. Since the civil rights era of twentieth century, most of the world has achieved some type of self-determination and multi-racial suffrage. With the expedience of mass media in the twenty-first century, genocide can no longer be totally obscured.

Stages of genocide and efforts to prevent it

In 1996 Gregory Stanton the president of Genocide Watch presented a briefing paper called "The 8 Stages of Genocide" at the United States Department of Statemarker.Gregory Stanton. The 8 Stages of Genocide, Genocide Watch, 1996 In it he suggested that genocide develops in eight stages that are "predictable but not inexorable".

The Stanton paper was presented at the State Department, shortly after the Rwanda genocide and much of the analysis is based on why that genocide occurred. The preventative measures suggested, given the original target audience, were those that the United States could implement directly or use their influence on other governments to have implemented.

Stage Characteristics Preventive measures
People are divided into "us and them". "The main preventive measure at this early stage is to develop universalistic institutions that transcend... divisions."
"When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups..." "To combat symbolization, hate symbols can be legally forbidden as can hate speech".
"One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases." "Local and international leaders should condemn the use of hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable. Leaders who incite genocide should be banned from international travel and have their foreign finances frozen."
"Genocide is always organized... Special army units or militias are often trained and armed..." "The U.N. should impose arms embargoes on governments and citizens of countries involved in genocidal massacres, and create commissions to investigate violations"
"Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda..." "Prevention may mean security protection for moderate leaders or assistance to human rights groups...Coups d’état by extremists should be opposed by international sanctions."
"Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity..." "At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be declared. ..."
"It is "extermination" to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human." "At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide. Real safe areas or refugee escape corridors should be established with heavily armed international protection."
"The perpetrators... deny that they committed any crimes..." "The response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts of govt."

In a paper for the Social Science Research Council Dirk Moses criticises Stanton approach concluding:

Prevention of Genocide Task Force

On 8 December 2008, the Prevention of Genocide Task Force, co-chaired by Madeline Albright, a former US Secretary of State, and William Cohen, a former US Secretary of Defence, released its final report which concludes that the US government can prevent genocide and mass atrocities in the future.

In the words of Mr. Cohen, “This report provides a blueprint that can enable the United States to take preventive action, along with international partners, to forestall the specter of future cases of genocide and mass atrocities.”

Recommendations include:
  • a proactive role of the US president which would demonstrate to the US and the World that preventing genocide and mass atrocities is a national priority
  • creating an body within the United States National Security Council to analyze threats and consider preventative action
  • set up a fund of $250 million for crisis prevention and response
  • help create an international network for the sharing of information and the coordination of preventative action

See also



Further reading

  • , report by Minority Rights Group International, 2006



Research Programs

Embed code:

Got something to say? Make a comment.
Your name
Your email address