Portal:Genocide

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The Genocide Portal

Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people.

Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by means such as "the disintegration of [its] political and social institutions, of [its] culture, language, national feelings, religion, and [its] economic existence". During the struggle to ratify the Genocide Convention, powerful countries restricted Lemkin's definition to exclude their own actions from being classified as genocide, ultimately limiting it to any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Genocide has occurred throughout human history, even during prehistoric times, but is particularly likely in situations of imperial expansion and power consolidation. Therefore, it is usually associated with colonial empires and settler colonies, as well as with both world wars and repressive governments in the twentieth century. The colloquial understanding of genocide is heavily influenced by the Holocaust as its archetype and is conceived as innocent victims targeted for their ethnic identity rather than for any political reason. Genocide is widely considered to be the epitome of human evil and often referred to as the "crime of crimes"; consequently, events are often denounced as genocide. (Full article...)

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Selected article

The **Peace Palace** in The Hague, Netherlands

The Peace Palace ("Vredespaleis" in Dutch), situated in The Hague, Netherlands, is often called the seat of international law because it houses the International Court of Justice (which is the principal judicial body of the United Nations), the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Hague Academy of International Law, and the extensive Peace Palace Library.

In addition to hosting these judicial functions, the Palace is also a regular venue for special events in international policy and law. The idea of the Palace started from a discussion in 1900 between the Russian diplomat Friedrich Martens and the American diplomat Andrew White, over providing a home for the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), which was established through the first Hague Peace Conference in 1899. White contacted his friend and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie about this idea. Carnegie had his reservations, and at first was only interested in donating money for the establishment of a Library of International Law. White however was able to convince Carnegie, and in 1903 Carnegie agreed to donating 1.5 million dollars needed for a Peace Temple that would house the PCA as well as to endow it with a library of international law.

In first instance Carnegie simply wanted to donate the money directly to the Dutch Queen, Wilhelmina of the Netherlands for the build of the palace, but legal problems prohibited this, and in November 1903 the Carnegie Stichting (Carnegie Foundation) was founded in order to manage the construction, ownership, and maintenance of the Palace. This foundation is still responsible for these issues at present date.

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Selected biography

Raphael Lemkin was a lawyer of Polonized-Jewish descent who is best known for coining the word genocide and initiating the Genocide Convention. Lemkin coined the word genocide in 1943 or 1944 from the rooted words genos (Greek for family, tribe, or race) and -cide (Latin for killing).

In 1933 Lemkin made a presentation to the Legal Council of the League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid, for which he prepared an essay on the Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law. The concept of the crime, which later evolved into the idea of genocide, was based on the Armenian Genocide and prompted by the experience of Assyrians massacred in Iraq during the 1933 Simele massacre. In 1934 Lemkin, under pressure from the Polish Foreign Minister for comments made at the Madrid conference, resigned his position and became a private solicitor in Warsaw. While in Warsaw, Lemkin attended numerous lectures organized by the Free Polish University, including the classes of Emil Stanisław Rappaport and Wacław Makowski.

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 Trials. In 1945 to 1946, Lemkin became an advisor to Supreme Court of the United States and Nuremberg Trial chief counsel Robert H. Jackson.

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"Over the past five years, I have often recalled that the United Nations' Charter begins with the words: "We the peoples." What is not always recognized is that "we the peoples" are made up of individuals whose claims to the most fundamental rights have too often been sacrificed in the supposed interests of the state or the nation. A genocide begins with the killing of one man – not for what he has done, but because of who he is. A campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' begins with one neighbour turning on another. Poverty begins when even one child is denied his or her fundamental right to education. What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life, all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations."

— Kofi Annan, Nobel lecture, 2001

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Selected images

Image 1The bodies of the dead lie awaiting burial in a mass grave at the camp. (Bergen-Belsen concentration camp)
Image 2Rwandan refugee camp in Zaire.
Image 3Emaciated corpses of children in Warsaw Ghetto.
Image 4Mummified victims of the Rwandan Genocide (1994) at Murambi Technical School. Photograph taken in July 2001 by Emmanuel Cattier.
Image 5Gas canisters and hair of Holocaust victims from a Nazi concentration camp.
Image 6Corpse of Soviet Famine victims transported to the cemetery. (Kherson)
Image 7Picture showing Armenians killed during the Armenian Genocide. Image taken from Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, written by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. and published in 1918.
Image 8Bones of anti-Nazi German women still are in the crematoriums in the German concentration camp at Weimar (Buchenwald), Germany, taken by the 3rd U.S. Army. Prisoners of all nationalities were tortured and killed. 04/14/1945
Image 9Original caption states: "Deep gashes delivered by the killers are visible in the skulls that fill one room at the Murambi School." Aftermath of Rwandan genocide.
Image 10"A relic of the Armenian massacres at Erzingan", image taken from US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau's memoirs (1918).

Did you know...

... that in South Africa's genocide case against Israel, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to "punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza?
... that historian Dirk Moses argues that The Problems of Genocide include "blinding us to other types of humanly caused civilian death"?

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Genocide lists

International prosecution of genocide (ad hoc tribunals)

It is commonly accepted that, at least since World War II, genocide has been illegal under customary international law as a peremptory norm, as well as under conventional international law. Acts of genocide are generally difficult to establish, for prosecution, since intent, demonstrating a chain of accountability, has to be established. International criminal courts and tribunals function primarily because the states involved are incapable or unwilling to prosecute crimes of this magnitude themselves.

For more information see:

Genocide: International prosecution of genocide (ad hoc tribunals)

International prosecution of genocide (International Criminal Court)

To date all international prosecutions for genocide have been brought in specially convened international tribunals. Since 2002, the International Criminal Court can exercise its jurisdiction if national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute genocide, thus being a "court of last resort," leaving the primary responsibility to exercise jurisdiction over alleged criminals to individual states. Due to the United States concerns over the ICC, the United States prefers to continue to use specially convened international tribunals for such investigations and potential prosecutions.^[1]

For more information see:

Genocide: International prosecution of genocide (International Criminal Court)

References
^ "Statement by Carolyn Willson, Minister Counselor for International Legal Affairs, on the Report of the ICC, in the UN General Assembly" (PDF). (123 KiB) November 23 2005