Comparative Genocide Studies

When one learns of any horrific act done in history, one question often arises: How? How could’ve this happened? This paper examines how much that question can be answered with a single word: dehumanization. The concept of dehumanization as an enabler to mass human atrocities will be showcased through a historical case study of the Holocaust, and further extended in connections to modern manifestations. In the case study, three key mechanisms of dehumanization will be highlighted: military actions, propaganda, and institutions. The conclusion of the study asserts that dehumanization encourages passivity in individuals that extremism relies upon to thrive. Furthermore, the findings from the case study and modern examples demonstrate modern mechanisms often operate more subtly, leaving human individuals vulnerable to perhaps the most dangerous form of dehumanization: self-protective dehumanization. Lastly, the Implications & Solution section underscores the need for very vigilant critical thinking and self-analysis to resist and prevail over dehumanization in human society.

Esther Bejarano (December 15, 1924 – July 10, 2021), a Holocaust survivor and dedicated artist, pursued avisionary utopia aimed at achieving unity and peace between Jews and Palestinians in Palestine. Her approach is characterized by a commitment to understanding and coexistence in a region marked by longstanding conflicts. This study explores the foundations of her utopia, her personal experiences, and the potential implications for resolving the conflict between Jews and Palestinians, drawing on her eyewitness accounts. Bejarano’s utopia is primarily shaped by her own painful history. As a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, she experienced the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand. Despite these traumatic experiences, Bejarano used her voice to advocate for peace and understanding. Her utopia is based on the firm belief that history does not have to perpetuate an endless cycle of violence and revenge; rather, unity and peace can be achieved through constructive dialogue. A central aspect of
Bejarano’s vision is the pursuit of unity. She believes in the possibility of creating a shared identity that transcends ethnic and religious differences. Her ideal involves recognizing and appreciating the cultural diversity of both
communities. Through artistic expressions such as music, Bejarano demonstrates the power of art to unite people and break down prejudices. Bejarano’s focus on peace reflects her conviction that a sustainable solution to the Middle East conflict can only be reached through peaceful means. Her understanding of peace extends beyond the mere absence of war to include the creation of conditions that allow for dignified and respectful coexistence. This involves dismantling both physical and metaphorical walls that separate the communities. Bejarano’s utopia is neither naive nor unrealistic; rather, it is a passionate call for reflection and action. She acknowledges the existing
challenges and tensions but simultaneously emphasizes the necessity of a collective effort by all parties to achieve lasting peace. Her ideal presents an alternative to the cyclical patterns of violence and calls for a paradigm shift in the perception of relationships between Jews and Palestinians.

This essay contends that contemporary research should pay greater attention to three fundamentally human characteristics of dehumanization. First, we argue that scholars need to better consider and analyze the ideological context of dehumanization, specifically the multiple meanings that diverse cultural conceptions of the human and the dehumanized impart to dehumanizing concepts or attitudes. Second, we urge a greater emphasis on how social relationships influence dehumanization, recognizing that people are entangled in complex and intersecting social identities, relationships, and histories that affect how they respond to the dehumanizing intentions of others. Third, we argue that the institutional context of dehumanization must be investigated and theorized, as dehumanization’s effects are rarely the result of atomized individuals reacting to diffuse dehumanizing rhetoric but rather the result of collective action within more or less formal organizations. These tasks can be accomplished through increased interdisciplinarity, thereby enhancing the insights and applicability of dehumanization research to the numerous forms of conflict, brutality, and extremism that are so frequently associated with dehumanization.

The footprints of historical, jurisprudential, and scholarly records unambiguously indicate that the origins of international mass atrocity crimes can all be traced back to their conceptual, linguistic origins. Within this constellation, the phenomenon of hate speech occupies one of the most unsettled and contested areas in international legal theory and practice. Though not established in international criminal law as a substantive crime or mode of liability, the many faces of hate speech reveal themselves in numerous ways as evidence of the genocidal and persecutory intent of their speakers. This chapter offers an overview of the nature, position, and role of hate speech in the context of international mass atrocity trials at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and at the International Criminal Court. The chapter ultimately demonstrates how a pragmatic prosecutorial approach to hate speech evidence can effectively be used and argued as evidence of genocidal and persecutory mens rea, even without the customary references to the specific psychological component of hate, introducing the contextual interpretation of each individual speech act.

The main objective of the article is to discuss whether food procurement methods during the Armenian Genocide could be considered as unarmed resistance. For this purpose, the first part of the article touched upon some scientific questions and the formation of the concept of unarmed resistance in the context of the Holocaust. Such scientific interest was inspired by the fact that though there had been instances of armed resistance during the Armenian Genocide, fights in self-defense, including those with victorious outcomes, as in Van, nonetheless there existed an opinion that the Armenians were to be blamed, to some extent, to have been “slaughtered like sheep,” i.e. without resistance. For that very reason, the purpose of this article was to offer a scholarly assessment of the concept of “resistance” by suggesting its subcategories as subjects for separate research. Indeed, it is impossible to cover all the viewpoints on the problem and all the forms of resistance within one artic...

Hendrik Witbooi (1830-1905): Literary memories in Afrikaans in historical context In this article I discuss the literary treatment of Hendrik Witbooi in P.J. Philander’s poetry collection Vuurklip (1960) alongside apartheid-era depictions of Witbooi by white writers in Die gésel van Namaland (W.A. de Klerk, 1969), Tweehonderd Gewere (Doc Immelman, 1965) and Duisend gewere (A. Cilliers, (196[-?]). These texts are decoded to examine the dialogic relationship between text and the contemporary socio-political context. The aim is to illustrate that there is a long tradition in Afrikaans of colonizing narratives about Hendrik Witbooi, and to highlight the impact of historian Gustav Preller’s distorted version of Witbooi history on literary depictions of Witbooi in subsequent years.

Hendrik Witbooi (1830-1905): Postcolonial and post-apartheid depictions in Afrikaans and Dutch 21st century literary texts
I discuss depictions of Hendrik Witbooi in Afrikaans and Dutch by writers from the Netherlands, South Africa and Namibia, and illustrate how the figure of Witbooi is reassessed in postcolonial, post-apartheid texts written after 2000. Piet van Rooyen’s Op soek na Witbooi (2011), Koos Marais’s Die keiservoël oor Namaland (2016), Connie Braam’s Ik ben Hendrik Witbooi (2016) and Wij zijn de wrekers over dit alles, as well as singer/songwriter HemelBesem’s “Ima Kullid” (2014), God praat Afrikaans (2017) and “Witbooi” (2020) are highlighted. The aim is to offer insights about similarities and differences, but also to consider how the trauma experienced by Witbooi and the Namas at the hands of German colonists is often remembered in ways that encompass the traumas of apartheid and the Holocaust.

In this paper, I examine critically the possibilities for implementing the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP)–the principle agreed upon by Member States of the UN to prevent genocide and other mass atrocities–in Indonesia given its ongoing culture of impunity for past and current grave abuses of human rights. 1 Essentially I examine two facets of the relationship between the Indonesian state and implementing the Responsibility to Protect. After briefly outlining the RtoP, I first consider the importance of Indonesia's support for the principle ...

In 2016, the icty Trial Chamber found one of the greatest hate and fear propagandists of the Yugoslav wars, Dr Vojislav Šešelj, not guilty on all counts of the indictment. A full comprehension of the role the propaganda played was lost and the partial reversal of the judgment at the Appeals Chamber provided little improvement in this regard. Yet the blame does not solely rest with the Chambers but also with the Prosecution and an utterly fragmented law applicable to hate and fear propaganda. This article looks in depth at the Šešelj case in order to highlight the many hurdles to effective prosecution, some specific to the case and others symptomatic generally of propaganda trials. It then takes a multi-disciplinary approach in presenting the nature of hate and fear propaganda to suggest a broader way of looking at causality as well as to argue for reform of the current applicable law.

Genocide is often considered the height of atrocity; the worst example of what humanity can inflict on each other. After the adoption and ratification of the Genocide Convention by the United Nations in 1948 in the aftermath of the Holocaust during WWII, the international community presented a unified commitment to prevent and punish further occurrences of genocide. However, the legal definition of the crime of genocide, while comprehensive and multifaceted, has notably fallen short when invoked in rare instances by the international community, as observed in the cases of the Cambodian Genocide, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICRT), the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and the current ICJ case reviewing the persecution of the Rohingya ethnic group by the state of Myanmar. There is a pressing need to critically analyze the efficacy of the Application of the Genocide Convention and explore various amendments to the legal definition of genocide, in order to bolster and reinforce the international community’s duty to prevent and punish crimes of genocide as they occur, in all capacities. By reviewing literature from prominent international legal scholars and human rights activists, an expanded definition of genocide and preventive framework can be developed, which can serve to encompass and persecute the span of genocidal crimes occurring around the globe today, effectively curbing wide-scale exterminations of marginalized communities before they occur, as the Genocide Convention was intended to do.

The aim of the paper is to provide with insights those young teachers who, in the course of their work, happen to participate in face-to-face discussions on various aspects of The Armenian Genocide with their philology, history and communication students. Very often the latter appear to interpret for foreigners, to share or exchange ideas with visitors who lack the knowledge of ‘The Armenian Genocide’. Students often have to deal with genocide documentation texts in English while translating, doing linguistic and statistic analyses and investigation. In the framework of the linguocognitive approach the text of non-fiction requires new and wider interpretation. The text which is regarded as a form of reflection of the knowledge about the world is viewed upon as a means of study of the existing knowledge and standpoints. Applying the linguocognitive approach to the texts with the common concept ‘The Armenian Genocide’ as the basic unit of the text will help both the teachers and philo...

Athens, Greece "'Jeveslik cries out to Heaven against us, we shall be doomed among the nations' one of these declared, while another pleaded with the Vali that the Turkish national honour should be no longer stained with such crimes against humanity." Prominent local Turks protesting the extermination of the Pontic Greeks at Jevislik Concentration and Extermination Camp 2 This article refers to the 1913-1923 genocide of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire and aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the overall genocidal process. On the one hand, it offers an ideological, social, and political background and framework for understanding that process; on the other hand, it documents and analyzes the various empirical aspects and data, providing ample examples of genocidal acts. The paper aims at providing an understanding of the genocide and a sense of the Ottoman projects of destruction that included Armenians, Assyrians/Arameans and Greeks-and other, less-known ethnic groups-in an attempt at a total restructuring of Ottoman society and the creation of a Turkish Muslim national state.

The media played a significant role during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Media messages took two forms: incitement to kill (or “incitement to violence”), and hate propaganda (or “hate speech”). In 2003, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) convicted three media leaders of, amongst others, genocide and incitement to commit genocide. This contribution is an attempt to find out whether these convictions are based on the speech and responsibility for speech through the media − distinct from other actions including utterances outside the context of the media − of the accused. If any of these convictions are in fact based on mediamessages, does “incitement to violence” or “hate speech” constitute the basis for such convictions? Conceding the difficulties of disentangling these different forms of speech, the conclusion is that the convictions are based on “incitement to violence”, and not on “hate speech” as such.

Holocaust vs. Popular Culture debates and deconstructs the binary responses to the representation of the Holocaust in European and non-European forms of Popular Culture.
The binary is defined in terms of "incompatibility" between the Holocaust and Popular Culture on the one hand and the "universalization" of the Holocaust memory through Popular Culture on the other. The book does emphasize the anti-representation argument. Nevertheless, the authors make a case for a productive understanding of "Holocaust Popular Culture" as contributing to the expansion of Holocaust studies as well as cultural studies in the transnational context. The book theorizes Popular Culture in broad terms and highlights the diversity of Holocaust Popular Culture mainly but not exclusively produced in the twenty-first century. This interdisciplinary collection covers a wide variety of Popular Culture genres including language, literature, films, television shows, soap operas, music, dance, social media, advertisements, comics, graphic novels, videogames, and museums. It studies the (mis)representation of the Holocaust trauma, not only across genres but also across nations (Western and Asian) and generations (from testimonial remembrance to post-memory).
This book will be of interest to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines and subjects, including Popular Culture, Holocaust studies, cultural studies, genocide studies, postcolonial and transnational studies, media and film studies, visual culture, games studies, race and ethnicity studies, memory studies, and Jewish studies.

Events in Ukraine during 1932-3 have been surrounded by controversy. Did a famine occur that took millions of lives? If a famine occurred, did natural causes (poor harvest and drought) and the destruction of livestock and seed grain during collectivization bring it about, or did the seizure of food by the Soviet authorities cause the famine? If the actions of Soviet authorities caused the famine, did they consist of a misdirected programme to secure and export foodstuffs for the industrialization campaign, a failure to respond to early reports of famine and an inability to mount effective countermeasures, or did they constitute a wilful policy not to provide assistance, a campaign to conceal famine and a callous refusal to accept foreign assistance? If the latter was the case, were the general ruthlessness of the Stalinist system and the regime's disdain for the peasantry in the face of a disaster it had brought on by its own misguided policies the reasons, or did a preconceived plan to starve the peasantry exist? If the famine was the outcome of a preconceived plan, was the plan directed at the peasantry of the entire Soviet Union, or was it aimed at Ukraine and Ukrainians in particular as part of a destructive campaign against the Ukrainian nation? From the 1930s to the 1980s there were two major, if unequal, ' contenders in this debate who had diametrically opposed viewpoints. On one side were the Soviet government, historians and propagandists who insistently denied that there had been a famine in 1932-3. On the other side were Ukrainians living outside the Soviet Union who asserted that a Soviet planned famine aimed at the Ukrainian people had taken place in 1932-3. 182 The Ukrainian Famine 183 Over time, the nature of the two adversaries changed. The Soviet regime evolved after the death of Stalin, and at times, the government permitted limited discussion of the purges and some mention of the failings of collectivization. Nevertheless, while a few literary works alluded to the famine, the regime refused to admit that a tragedy had occurred. The Ukrainian communities outside the Soviet Union also changed greatly over the course of a half-century. In the 1930s Ukrainians outside of the Soviet Union were politically diverse and included a pro-Soviet left that accepted the official Soviet version. At that time the politically active groups outside the Soviet Union primarily consisted of the inhabitants of the Western Ukrainian territories in Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia, and the political leaders and followers in the emigre centres of Prague, Paris and Warsaw. After World War II, the Soviet annexation of western Ukrainian lands and the occupation of the east-central European centres limited the communities to Western Europe and, above all, to North and South America. Hundreds of thousands of refugees joined the older diaspora communities in the US and Canada. This infusion and the dying out of the socialist and communist groups moved diaspora politics to the right. The wave of refugees also brought thousands of survivors of the famine into the diaspora communities. Until the 1970s, the Soviet side had considerable success in limiting public awareness and study of the famine. Yet in the 1980s, the Ukrainian diaspora communities fostered heightened public discussion and drew scholarly attention to the famine of 1932-3. The reasons for this change lay not only in the new tactics of the diaspora communities, but also in the evolving nature of political attitudes and scholarly agendas in the decades after the famine. The story of why it took so long for public and scholarly attention to focus on the famine and why it did so in the 1980s• involves a web of attitudes and issues that often do not appear to be related directly to the tragedy. Of primary importance were individuals and groups who were neither advocates of a total denial nor proponents of the view that a mai,or genocide had occurred. By the late 1980s, a wide body of the Western public had become aware that a famine had raged in Ukraine in the 1930s and that the Soviet denial was false. Shortly thereafter, glasnost in the Soviet Union undermined the long-held Soviet position in this,debate and opened Ukraine up for public discussion and research. This new discussion of the Ukrainian famine generally evoked surprise that such a major event was so little known. The roots of this inattention can, in part, be traced back to the 1930s, when Western 10 9

This article looks at the international criminal law on hate speech that falls short of direct and public incitement to commit genocide. Using the most egregious form of hate speech that has been prosecuted as an international crime — that of direct and public incitement to genocide — as a baseline, the author analyses the legal parameters of hate speech as persecution (a crime against humanity) and hate speech as instigation (a mode of liability). In so doing, the author critically reviews the International Residual Mechanism for the International Criminal Tribunals’ (IRMCT) appeal judgment in the Šešelj case (Šešelj Appeal Judgment) in the light of prior case law of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg (IMT) and the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia (ICTR and ICTY respectively). The author submits that a plain reading of the Šešelj Appeal Judgment supports the view that it is only the more extreme form of incitement to violence, inci...

HOUSED IN THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS ARCHIVE at Geneva is a collection of intake surveys from the Rescue Home in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. These documents record the histories of some 2,000 Armenian girls, boys, and young women who were rescued-or, more often, rescued themselves-from Arab, Kurdish, and Turkish households into which they had been taken during and after the First World War and as a consequence of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. 1 The story of Zabel is representative of the histories in the home's records. 2 The daughter of Bedros, Zabel arrived at the home on May 18, 1926, at the age of eighteen. Having been deported along with her family when she was seven or eight, she recalled that she was from Arapgir, a town in Southeastern Anatolia. She told the director of the home, Karen Jeppe, enough that the following information could be reconstructed: In the beginning of the deportation, Zabel's father was separated from her family and was sent in an unknown direction. Zabel was exiled with her mother, 5 sisters and a younger brother. The caravan which consisted of men, women, boys, girls and infants, was formed to go on foot 3 months, wandering upon the mountains, passing through the villages, crossing the rivers and marching across the deserts. .. The gendarmes had received the order to kill the unfortunate people by every means in their power. Near Veranshehir, they collected all the beautiful girls, and distributed them among the Turks and the Kurds. The rest of the caravan had to go further on in the deserts to die. Zabel had been the share of a Kurd, who married her. She lived there 11 years, unwillingly, til an Armenian chauffeur informed her

Mein Vortrag handelt von einem der größten Staatsverbrechen des an Staatsverbrechen reichen 20. Jhs. Deshalb hat man dieses Jahrhundert auch als Jahrhundert der Völkermorde bezeichnet. Ich beziehe mich heute Abend auf den Genozid in der letzten Dekade osmanischer Herrschaft.

the two books discussed here join a current pushback against the concept (thus also against claims for the historical occurrence) of genocide. Nichanian focuses on the armenian "aghed" ("catastrophe"), inferring from his view of that event's undeniability that "genocide is not a fact" (since all facts are deniable). May's critique assumes that groups don't really-"objectively"-exist, as (by contrast) individuals do; thus, genocide-group murder-also has an "as if" quality so far as concerns the group victimized. on the one hand, then, uniqueness and sacralization; on the other hand, reductionism and diffusion. alas, the historical and moral claims in "defense" of both genocide and "genocide" survive.

Ակտիվների արժեթղթավորումը ժամանակակից ֆինանսական շուկաների կարևոր գործառույթներից է, որը սակայն ՀՀ-ում դեռևս արմատավորում չի ստացել: Հոդվածում քննարկվում են զարգացած երկրներում արժեթղթավորման տարբեր դրսևորումները, նշվում են ՀՀ-ում դրանց կիրառման խոչընդոտները, ինչպես նաև հիմնավորվում ու առաջարկվում է ՀՀ առևտրային μանկերի կողմից սինդիկացված վարկերի արժեթղթավորման մեխանիզմ:

Not long ago I found myself in the back of a battered old car, juddering down a long bumpy road in Rwanda. It was dusty and hot. The journey was longer than expected. We were in search of one particular building. When we finally arrived at the small village of Ntarama, barefoot children dashed out of their houses, waving and laughing at us. It was a relief to get out of the car. I felt shaken up by the journey; but I would be far more shaken by what we found. We were confronted by large metal gates, with purple and white ribbons dangling from the railings. Walking into a tree-lined enclosure, we found ourselves facing three buildings. I stooped to go inside the largest of these. The church was smaller than I had expected. Above low wooden benches drab clothes were hanging from the rafters. There was a musty smell of rotting fabric. As my eyes became accustomed to the darker interior, I could make out flowers on an altar at the front. On the wall, next to where we had come in, there were the remains of a poster of John Paul II. It was in tatters. To the left of this picture, there were ordinary metal shelves, reminiscent of those that you might find at a home improvement store. On these shelves, neatly organised in rows were skulls. They stared out silently. One still had a metal rod protruding from its forehead. Beneath them were layers of differently sized bones. This was one of the many churches in Rwanda where thousands of Tutsis had fled for safety. Here in Ntarama, about 25 miles South of Kigali, over five thousand Tutsi women, men and children sought sanctuary in or next to this place of worship. That was before many of their Hutu neighbours came, aided by gangs of young men, the Interahamwe, mostly from Kigali. They carried tools intended for the farm-machetes, hoes or clubs-along with a few guns, tear gas and grenades. These were thrown into the church. In a few hours almost everyone was killed. Like many of the other 'killing churches' it has been 'tidied up' and turned into a genocide memorial. Rwanda, a country famous for its 'thousand hills', its gorillas in the mist and its beauty, is now becoming better known for its hundreds or perhaps thousands of genocide memorials. For many Rwanda has become inextricably connected with, even defined by, the 1994 genocide. Our guide in Ntarama hardly smiled once as she showed us around, even 13 years on. Hardly surprising, given she had lost her parents, her brothers and her sisters nearby. It is strange how small details can haunt you, shake you, and inscribe themselves into your memory: an open wooden chest full of children's notebooks, several biros hanging on a line above a pile of shoes, a woven communion cup lying in the dust. 2 Walking around this and other memorials in Rwanda, it is hard to appreciate the sheer scale of the killing. Here was a quiet, shaded and tranquil space bearing solemn witness to one among thousands of unimaginable nightmares. Even though pictures of this church, both carpeted in bodies and after it was 'tidied up', are now easily available around the world on the web, there were no obvious signs of global or local media presence. On our way out, I asked the guide what I could do. Her response has stayed with me ever since, resonating with the stated aim of other genocide memorials and museums around the world. Her exhortation to action has informed my own reflection, teaching and research: 'Make sure you tell people what happened here. So it never happens again. Never Again.'

The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (“the Convention”), as amended by the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (“the Protocol”) with effect from 4 October 1967 [1], prohibits contracting parties from expelling (“refouling”) a refugee, as defined by Article 1A(2) of the Convention, from its territory, except in very limited circumstances [2]. Article 1A (2) provides that a person is a “refugee” if:

One of the most frequently asked questions in the wake of the genocide which took place in Rwanda in 1994 has been 'how could it happen?,' or more specifically, how could it be that so many thousands of individual citizens throughout the country could be motivated to turn on their neighbours in a concerted groundswell of violence, killing them without mercy. Many of the scholars and journalists who sought to elucidate the origins of the genocide in the country's colonial and post-colonial history have highlighted the significance of the stigmatisation of the Tutsi population during this period (Prunier 1995; Braeckman 1995; Hintjens 1999; Mugesera 2004). In this connection, the introduction of identity cards by Belgian authorities in 1933, which categorically established each individual's 'ubwoko' [ethnicity], intrinsically promoted the notion that ethnic difference was an important consideration for Rwandan society. More tangibly, these cards subsequently facilitated the widespread exclusion of the Tutsi population from schools and workplaces. They were also used by genocide perpetrators in 1994 to identify their victims, to the extent that they have been regarded as tantamount to 'death warrants' (Des Forges 1999: 19). Stigmatisation was also an essential feature of the anti-Tutsi propaganda that was disseminated from the 1950s onwards in meetings, newspaper articles and political tracts (Mugesera 1994). Among the key characteristics of this propaganda discourse was the representation of Tutsi as 'inyenzi' [cockroaches] or 'inkota' [snakes]; in other words, as vermin to be exterminated. This deliberate and systematic dehumanisation of Fletcher Words That Can Kill

The emergence of a sustained scholarly interest in the origins of humanitarian organisations is a relatively new phenomenon, which has – in part – led to an overly positivistic and uncritical understanding of humanitarianism, in both its current and past iterations. This article is an examination of one of the earliest, and perhaps most influential humanitarian organisations of its time: the Near East Relief – and details the organisation's transformation from a coalition of religiously selective relief committees into a secular, permanent, and development-focused humanitarian institution. Through exploring the setting, birth, and early history of the NER, it is possible to create an image of the general development of international humanitarianism in the interwar years. Factors such as field experience, donor pressure, internal organisational disputes, paternalistic attitudes, a growing academic presence within the NER, and the influence and changing character of religious doct...

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan genocide. From April to July 1994, over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. In addition, 250,000 women became victims of sexual violence, many of whom were killed afterwards.[i] An estimated 70 percent of the women who survived were infected with HIV. At the end of the 100 days of slaughter, 85 percent of Tutsis – equal to 10 percent of Rwanda’s population – were killed and half of the population was either internally displaced or had fled the country. The Rwandan genocide serves as a stark reminder how little the international community has learnt from the horrors of the Holocaust; in view of not only the vast crimes committed, but the abject inaction to prevent a genocide which had “one of the highest casualty rates of any population in history from non-natural causes.”[ii]

3. His research focuses on the history of health professions in the late Ottoman and Mandatory Middle East, with a focus on Palestine; the history of expertise in the Middle Eastern mandates; and the history of alcohol in the modern Middle East. His publications include: "La invención de los indicadores internacionales: Salud, problemas sociales y cuantificación en

This volume of three interrelated studies aims to explore the various contingencies through which individuals responsible, to various degrees, for promoting expressions of racist hate were subjected to markedly different types of legal responses within the landmark Nuremberg trials programme. These contingencies, together with loose judicial reasoning, complicate scholarly efforts to identify the historical emergence of this type of transnational hate crime, and to illustrate the complications that arise when seeking to ascertain its implications as a precedent. It needs to be emphasised at the outset that what follows is not a comprehensive study of the origins of the criminalisation of hate speech in general as this would have to include a full comparative survey of all domestic laws and their judicial interpretation, application and institutional enforcement. In addition, the interaction between domestic, regional and international criminalisations would also have to be addressed...

Antisemitism is a pervasive social issue in Canada. A common response is to invoke the law. Law is expected to bring justice to perpetrators and solace to impacted individuals and communities. This thesis examines legal responses to antisemitic hate crimes over the last 12 years (the cases span the years 2008-2017). More specifically, it performs a discourse analysis on four provincial hate crime cases, all pertaining to antisemitic crimes. It addresses the following question: how does law frame and characterize Jewish identity and antisemitism and how do these conceptualizations affect its ability to deter and combat anti-Jewish hate in contemporary Canada? This thesis argues that through its procedural and methodological limitations, law is not efficient enough to be a main deterrent and combatant for antisemitism in contemporary Canada. In other words, how law frames and delimits particular phenomena and issues affect its ability to combat antisemitism. This thesis reveals that c...

This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the motives behind three state-induced genocides within South Asian, which are: (i) the 1971 Genocide in present-day Bangladesh, (ii) the Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979), and (iii) the Rohingya Genocide (2016-). Through this comparative analysis, the paper aims to expose a pattern of motives which have ultimately led to genocides in the modern South Asia region. This paper partially adopts Raphael Lemkin's conceptual framework to identify and analyse individual cases before comparing them. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer, was the first one to coin the term 'genocide' and described the phenomenon as "the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group" back in the 1940s. The paper has two major objectives to meet through this critical venture. Firstly, it aims to synthesise the contemporary understandings of what comparative genocide studies is and does. Secondly, it seeks to outline the dominant motives behind genocides in South Asian region so as to predict and prevent future such atrocities. The paper argues that such a study will (i) give a more comprehensive understanding of international politics and histories of the region, (ii) provide insights to prevent and possibly predict future such atrocities, and (iii) equip us to meet the SDG-16 of United Nations which seeks to ensure justice and peace at every level.

Athens, Greece "'Jeveslik cries out to Heaven against us, we shall be doomed among the nations' one of these declared, while another pleaded with the Vali that the Turkish national honour should be no longer stained with such crimes against humanity." Prominent local Turks protesting the extermination of the Pontic Greeks at Jevislik Concentration and Extermination Camp 2 This article refers to the 1913-1923 genocide of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire and aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the overall genocidal process. On the one hand, it offers an ideological, social, and political background and framework for understanding that process; on the other hand, it documents and analyzes the various empirical aspects and data, providing ample examples of genocidal acts. The paper aims at providing an understanding of the genocide and a sense of the Ottoman projects of destruction that included Armenians, Assyrians/Arameans and Greeks-and other, less-known ethnic groups-in an attempt at a total restructuring of Ottoman society and the creation of a Turkish Muslim national state.

This Article examines the framework of criminal accountability for direct
and public incitement to commit genocide and critically evaluates the
claim made in ICTR Trial Chamber judgments that a causal connection
exists between propagandistic speech acts and genocidal acts of violence.
Parts I and II track and evaluate the development of international jurisprudence
on propaganda in the context of domestic and international
armed conflict, from the Nuremberg Trials to the ICTR judgments. Part II
also questions the place of causation in ICTR jurisprudence and underlines
the ambiguities in contemporary legal reasoning on direct and public incitement to genocide (ICG). Part III
then critiques the “likelihood of genocide” matrix developed by Susan Benesch,
finding that while Benesch’s approach is valuable in its attention to
the context of speech acts, additional intellectual groundwork is needed:
first, to establish the formal legal basis for inchoate speech crimes such as
ICG, and second, to separate such inchoate crimes from other modes of
international legal liability for speech acts in connection with crimes.13
Next, drawing upon the theoretical framework of one of the foremost philosophers
of language in the twentieth century, J.L. Austin, Parts IV and V
disentangle the intention of the speaker from the consequences of speech
acts. Part IV explains Austin’s theory, drawing on it to recommend reforms
to ICG jurisprudence. In determining incitement to commit genocide,
international law might usefully differentiate between three aspects
of performative utterances, or what Austin terms the “locutionary” (the
meaning and content), “illocutionary” (its force), and “perlocutionary”
(the consequences) qualities of speech acts.14 Specific intent to commit
genocide is found in the content, meaning, and force of speech acts, rather
than in consequences, which can be an unreliable guide to intention. Part
V finds that by using this template, international tribunals might better
distinguish modes of liability that require causation (such as instigating,
ordering, and aiding and abetting) from inchoate crimes such as direct and
public incitement to commit genocide, where the meaning and the force of
public statements—rather than their consequences—is paramount. Other
benefits of this approach would include refocusing attention on the prevention
of genocide and clarifying and narrowing the range of impermissible
speech.

HOUSED IN THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS ARCHIVE at Geneva is a collection of intake surveys from the Rescue Home in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. These documents record the histories of some 2,000 Armenian girls, boys, and young women who were rescued—or, more often, rescued themselves—from Arab, Kurdish, and Turkish households into which they had been taken during and after the First World War and as a consequence of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. 1 The story of Zabel is representative of the histories in ...

This paper applies the methodological premise of the 'social life of things' to give insight into the context and movements of a collection of records found at the Norwegian National Archive, that contribute to the documentation of the Armenian Genocide. A study of the life of this collection tells the story of Norwegian missionaries in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, their witnessing of the Genocide and the subsequent activations of the records. It explores the use and impact of these records in Norway, which have led to international collaborations for the historical memory of Armenia and acknowledgement of the Genocide, taking a different political stand to that of the Norwegian government. Nevertheless, silences have been encoded in the making of the archives, the making of narratives, and at the moment of retrospective significance. It highlights the circumscribing predominance of national narratives to documents and raises questions about the silences in other missionary archives in Norway.