Genocide flash cards

Rwanda mistakes

- "save the UN"- don't risk UN reputation on another disaster; UN ms don't want to spend more money, send troops, intervene in dangerous/hopeless situation - Rwanda in 1993: two sides- govt composed of majority Hutu, RPF composed of minority ethnic tutsis - oct 1993: UNSC agrees to launch small, simple pk mission (UNAMIR) - UNAMIR deployed over next few months under commander Dallaire - "the genocide fax": jan 1994, Dallaire tells UNHQ that an informant claimed there was a strategy to kill Belgian soldiers/force Belgium to withdraw troops, he was ordered to register all Tutsi in Kigali, he knows where a weapons cache is - Dallaire wants to take action to seize weapons, UN says no - other warning signs: previous inter ethnic violence in Rwanda in 1963, organized killings of Tutsi reported by HR organizations in 1993, but focus at UN on civil war - genocide begins - April 6 1994: Habyarimana plane blown up; within hours, killing begins - prime minister killed, 10 Belgian pk killed (prompts Belgium to seek withdrawal) - April 8: RPF breaks ceasefire, restarts civil war (confusion between cw and genocide) - responses at UN: Dallaire spike of organized ethnic cleansing; UNHQ of chaos. UNHQ didn't want intervention. Belgium and US agreed UNAMIR should be withdrawn entirely - naming genocide: growing evidence that it's not just a civil war, Dallaire using genocide by late April, April 29 NZ tried to push through a UNSC statement referring to genocide, UK ambassador reject use of word - intervention: growing feeling in favor of intervention; UNAMIR authorized on May 17- 5500 troops if ceasefire, but no ceasefire and no ms offering troops to UNAMIR - ICTR set up after genocide - France intervenes: operation turquoise: in June, France decided to intervene unilaterally, and protect displaced persons, refugees and civilians at risk in Rwanda. French action viewed with suspicion as it strongly supported the Rwanda govt, and wanted to fight RPF. Established safe zone in south of country. Did save some 10-13,000 lives but also let Rwandan govt members and troops escape to DRC

AU and Darfur

- 2004, AU agreed to send troops to patrol a ceasefire, implementation of 2006 peace accord - pk mission almost collapsed due to limited resources; jan 2005, UN agreed to send pk mission to Darfur

Modernity: Rwandan genocide vs Holocaust

- 4 pillars of modernity: industry, technology, rationality, innovation - portrayals and imagery of Rwandan genocide that has certain connotations in relation to enlightenment- always pictures of machetes - not incidental, deliberate portrayal of long held assumptions about much of the rest of the world: where people are strong and rational, mighty, reasonable, solid; images of running blacks reinforce the notion of being unpredictable and emotional, less rational, tribes- and the imagery of Fire has connotations of primitivism, as well as destruction - language denies role of agency, contingency, organization information - emotions shouldn't be principle focus - also a problem with how Rwandan genocide was reported (cite reader)

R2P since 2011

- UNSC has addressed several other crises and referred to R2P: Iraq, Central African Republic, South Sudan, etc; usually these references reiterate that the state concerned has a responsibility to protect the population - human rights council resolutions on prevention of genocide also refer to R2P

Mamdani: when victims become killers

- draws attention to the need to understand conflict and violence historically - argument: we can't understand the Rwandan genocide of 1994 without understanding the decades of violence between these groups that ran prior - Rwanda was briefly governed by Belgium and Germany- Belgium allowed majority rule - but before the revolution, there was major violence in 1959, and in the centuries prior it was the Tutsi who ruled violently over the Hutu - independence in 1962: rule by Hutu government until 1994

What works (rudolf article)

- early warning is difficult: which factors? Role of triggers? - false alarm inevitable

Woolford: is Canada indigenous erasure genocide?

- entertain the idea that genocide can be conducted very slowly over a long period of time- more gradual death that's less obvious - genocide is intended to signify a coordinated plan of actions aimed at the destruction of certain national groups- it doesn't necessarily only refer to the organized killing of these groups

Ethnic cleansing

- euphemism used by perpetrators to describe the goal of wiping out undesirable populations - gives off subliminal message of creating order- palatable - legal definition could count as a war crime or crime against humanity but not necessarily an act of genocide

Culturalist Approach

- eye for an eye, contextual variables, cultural norms, principles, values, ideology, propaganda, fear, us vs them - dehumanization - instilled, permissible, desirable, necessary - Goldhagen, Hitlers willing executioners: argues that German culture and society was at its core anti-Semitic (emotions, culture norms, anti-Semitic values led to Holocaust) - goldhagen believed that this particular trait of anti-semitism was a cultural trait that was deeply instilled in the German character (essentialist argument) - not focusing on Hitler and broader campaign, but rather why ordinary Germans participated - believes they were willing, not reluctant, and culturally predisposed to it - Germans liked this argument and became fans of Goldhagen, probably because it went back to a deeply instilled feeling that they couldn't do anything about. It shifted the blame off of them

David Scheffer

- first US ambassador for war crimes - wrote the book "all the missing souls" - found that the term was unhelpful due to being too emotionally loaded - introduced the term atrocity crimes - thinks language of genocide is too intimidating - when events are defined as genocide, governments become too scared to act due to legal obligations - atrocity crimes describe particularly heinous crimes suitable for criminal prosecution - legal definition of genocide is so complex- Scheffer calls for the prosecution of atrocities, but with a shorter time period. Usually obvious that something bad is happening- rather than fight over what it is or isn't, call it for that moment what it is - atrocity crimes: collectively excited crimes of such magnitude as to be particularly prominent and logically inconsistent with the protection of human life and the maintenance of international peace - creates a certain threshold- and then afterwards, lawyers can decide to prosecute for crimes against humanity, terrorism, or genocide- very specific and narrow definitions that we can worry about later

War and genocide: Martin Shaw

- genocide is a form of war - fundamentally war and genocide seem to be very different things; war in the simplest form is the defeat of an enemy, while genocide is about the destruction of a social group - war may lead to hardening of feelings about the other - propaganda becomes more extreme during war - violence becomes an everyday form of interaction

Regional consequences of Rwandan genocide

- international repercussions with Africa, Rwandan refugees were allowed to mobilize inside of Zaire refugee camps, DRC conflict, around 5 million dead due to disease and starvation after both the wars/ conflicts in DRC, case where one genocide subsequently caused significantly more suffering and death than during the original conflict

Problems with 1948 definition of genocide convention

- limited list of victim groups - lines between ethnicities and nationalities are often blurred - intent is often hard to prove

Structural prevention vs short term prevention

- long term prevention strategy addresses the root causes of mass atrocities; it involves the systematic incorporation of various elements related to mass atrocity prevention into relations with countries where there are identifiable risk factors - short term direct prevention aims to respond quickly and decisively to warnings about rapidly growing risks and first indications of mass atrocities

Problem with talking about genocide is it's morally loaded and we think of it in binaries:

- many cases look so different from Holocaust, Rwanda, etc- smaller scale, more complicated government, not a direct plan - distinguish among genocidal acts, genocidal campaigns, and genocidal regimes (three pillars of genocide)- conceptual distinction allows us to move beyond general conception - legal definition of genocide according to genocide convention: refers to acts committed with the intent to destroy a national racial religious or ethnic group in whole or in part - genocide convention is a diplomatic call for action but also brings in concepts of criminal law - tension in language - not all the violence we see is necessarily genocidal violence - don't necessarily have to call something genocide if genocidal acts are committed - not all aspects of colonialism were genocide- lumping all colonial endeavors into category of genocide may be counterproductive - when all three aspects of genocide are present is often the only times we talk about the term genocide rather than dividing them info their separate counterparts

Post Cold War practices

- new liberal consensus in favor of protection of human rights, democracy: more interference including aid conditionality, sending observers to monitor elections, rise of 2nd generation UN peacekeeping, and using military force to protect civilians from own government - CW not leading to peace but to complex emergencies within states - states responsibilities- for the complex emergencies themselves and then for sorting them out - fear that genocide or humanitarian motives could allow states to intervene, OR force them to do so (so avoid calling atrocities genocide)

Remote vs proximate causes of genocide

- shooting down plane of president of Rwanda- proximate cause - colonialism, conditioning identity cards, past tension- remote causes - cut through things that cause outsiders to think genocide is incomprehensible - other factors need to be present for a certain independent variable to lead to a dependent variable

RTLM and NATO bombing

- suggested that this station motivated people to kill friends and neighbors - Scott Strauss - April to May- most people were killed. Strauss found that propaganda was least hateful when people were more violent - no correlation between levels of violence and areas with signal to RTLM - 210 perpetrators said radio didn't motivate them to kill - concluded injection model to be wrong - dirott, 2014, got opposite results - April 23rd 1999- NATO bombed RTS, deemed RTS as a legitimate threat (first time a radio station was seen as a threat) - can propaganda contribute to peace? In short, yes- can positively impact decreasing violence

Why modernity matters- Bauman

- the four pillars of modernity- rationality, technology, industry, bureaucracy- were not incidental but integral to the destruction of the Jews - the truth is that every ingredient of the Holocaust was normal; "normal" not in the sense of the familiar, but in the sense of being fully keeping with everything we know about our civilization, it's guiding spirit, it's priorities, it's immanent vision of the world

Ethics and foreign policy

- to what extent should states prioritize HR considerations in their foreign policies - realist views: states should not, waste of state resources - liberal internationalist views: people are people, we have a duty to do something if HR violations occur - constructivist views on role of norms: interested in strength of HR norms - don't forget role of states in inadvertently contributing to HR violations

Myanmar

- transitioning to democracy- very unstable and potentially dangerous period - Rohingya in Rakhine state- numerous warnings about their status, treatment, concerns re violence in the past - August 2017: armed Rohingya group attacked police posts - in response, Myanmar armed forces launched a disproportionate response; UN high commissioner for human rights labeled a textbook case of ethnic cleansing - since August 2017, almost 700,000 Rohingyans have fled Myanmar and are mostly encamped across the border in Bangladesh - UN figures are saying that these atrocities are happening and the Myanmar govt is responsible - no UNSC resolution though a UNSC presidential statement in 2017 mentioned Myanmar's govt responsibility to protect population; HRC investigation - EU, US, Canada, Australia targeted sanctions (military). Nothing else since then

Aftermath of genocide: Prunier

- violence that happened in South Africa indirectly led to violence in Wilhelmine Germany - hull reading, page 196: new norm became popular at the turn of the 20th century, namely that it was no longer sufficient to defeat an enemy, but to destroy an enemy as well. This normative shift in Germany explains why colonial forces in South Africa dealt with the Herero problem the way they did - this idea was then transported to the Ottoman Empire as well

Actor Reus and mens rea

Bad act and guilty mind: demonstrate that the person in question has killed the member of a group and has done so intentionally; perpetrator has done so in order to destroy them as a member of one of the protected groups

Order of terror (camp time), cultural face of Hutu terror

Creating unbearable conditions and indecent deaths

5 major genocides

Holocaust, Armenian, Rwandan, Cambodia, Srebrenica - debatable: native Americans, Darfur

Atrocity crimes: David Scheffer

Introduces the notion of atrocity crimes as a substitute for genocide in order to end the political gridlock that comes from defining something as genocide

"Killing members of a group"

Voluntary and intentional, doesn't count as genocide if it was an accident or you were forced to do it

Legal definition of genocide

- 1948 convention - 4 protected groups: race, ethnicity, nationality, religion - argument of environmental destruction on territories where First Nations settled is a form of destroying their way of life and shouldn't be considered any less significant than physical destruction - in some communities there is no clear line between physical death and other forms of death - genocide convention didn't include political party under their protected groups due to the politics of international law (USSR didn't want it to be classified as such), as well as gender or sexual orientation

State obligations

- 1948 genocide convention 1. Punish individuals charges with genocide must be tried by a competent tribunal of the state in the territory of which the act was committed or by a future international criminal tribunal; obligation on states parties is to try individuals for crimes committed within their territory, does not prohibit states from trying their own nationals for crimes of genocide, states must also extradite suspects to the state which has jurisdiction 2. States may call upon the competent organs of the UN to take such action under charter of UN as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide; only time this article was invoked was in 2004 in reference to Darfur by the US - attitudes re genocide convention: not uniformly positive even in Europe: us hostile for decades (protection of sovereignty) - war crimes/ crimes against humanity: series of obligations regarding conduct of war; don't target civilians, accept refugees

Propaganda- can it incite violence?

- 2 extremes of thought - rationalist: Argues that propaganda doesn't play a huge role in inciting violence, propaganda cannot truly be researched because it can't be captured in a methodologically rigorous way - other group believes that propaganda is everything; the "injection model", when you put something into someone's mind, it changes how they see things and behave. Research doesn't play out in practice, isn't conducted vigorously - research focuses on the most extreme forms of speech, which doesn't apply to the general public

BiH war

- April 1992: serious violence breaks out in BiH - 3 main ethnic groups in BiH - Bosnian Serbs backed by Serbia begins "ethnic cleansing" of territory adjacent to Serbia - Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia want to be known as independent states - Serbs living in Bosnia, Croats living in Bosnia, Serb forces backing Bosnian serbs - Serbs vs Bosniaks, Serbs vs Croatia, Croats vs Bosniaks - no ceasefire, no peace to keep - UNPROFOR is enlarged and extended to BiH: at first to try to secure airport in Sarajevo and remove heavy weapons: then increasingly to ensure security of humanitarian aid deliveries by UNHCR - can use force only in self defense- so can't get through roadblocks and Bosnian Serbs do restrict aid deliveries to many areas - most of UNPROFOR troops come from UK and France with other European countries also large contributors - UNPROFOR one of larger UN pk ops - reporters investigating reports that Bosnian Serbs had set up concentration camps for Muslim prisoners- images are shocking - August 1993: revelations about camps in BiH- idea for ICTY gains traction, but no agreement that genocide is happening (call it ethnic cleansing) - UN escalates involvement - October 1992: UNSC declares no fly zone above BiH; April 1993: NATO enforces - 1993: fighting in eastern BiH; UNSC establishes "safe areas" in Srebrenica that are not to be attacked or militarized; they are atrocious places to live - UNPROFOR to protect humanitarian aid to the safe areas; NATO could use air power to that end but use of air power could endanger UNPROFOR on ground - peace negotiations are difficult, no external actors willing to intervene - civilians dying in meantime - 1995: more robust UNPROFOR, challenging parties on the ground - bosniak military forces make progress especially in northwestern Bosnia - Croatian forces act in summer 1995 to take over Croatian Serb enclaves - thousands of Croatian refugees now on the run - shelling of Sarajevo, UNPROFOR hostage situation finally makes NATO snap - September 1995: heavy NATO air strike on Bosnian Serb positions - Dayton peace negotiations- Dayton agreement signed December 1995

Revolutions in genocide

- Armenian genocide - revolution decimated the previous Armenian identity and isolated them away from Young Turks - before the revolution, instability of great empires in the 19th century - people pushing for liberty, democracy, fair representation - governing ottoman empire became less stable, created an opening for revolutionaries to come into power- young, forceful, revolutionary, exclusionary identity - young Turks wanted a nation of people who looked and acted and thought just like them- creates a revolutionary dynamic that made that empire unstable

Holocaust timeline

- Auschwitz: 1.3 million inmates, 1.1 killed - January 1933: Hitler becomes chancellor - March 1933: Dachau opens, enabling act (Hitler is given full power) - April 1933: boycott of Jewish businesses - September 1935: Nuremberg Laws (projection of german blood and german honor) - November 1935: supplemental decree to Nuremberg laws - 9-10th November 1938: Kristall Nockt - September 1939: Poland invaded, ghettos established, stars of David - January 1942; Wannsee conference- final solution to Jewish question - 1941-1945: 6 million Jews killed, 11 million people total - euthanasia program: nazi regime killing mentally or physically disabled children - not one specific event that triggered it, it built up steadily over time - cumulative radicalization - representation was very different than Rwandan genocide - Jewish as a race rather than a faith (based on Jewish blood not on practicing Jews)

International views on R2P

- Eu rhetoric: strong commitments to preventing conflict, protecting HR worldwide - EU and EU member states have constantly expressed support for R2P at UN, but R2P not an integral part of the EU's foreign policy discourse - EU member states do not agree re use of force (find it difficult to agree with pillar 3) - France and the UK have rejected the view that unauthorized intervention should be prohibited in all circumstances (in other words, they could act without UNSC authorization) - former french FM kouchner advocates for right to interfere - France is a driving force behind move to limit UNSC veto in R2P situations - Germany argued that the use of force without the consent of the host government could only be sanctioned by the UNSC- in accordance with its traditional reverence for the primary of international law and thE UN charter AU - obligation of the state to protect their citizens should not be used as a pretext to undermine the sovereignty, independent, and territorial integrity of states; UNSC authorization needed for the use of force, but this condition should not undermine the responsibility of the international community to protect; AU emphatic about the need to empower regional organizations to take actions in accordance with the responsibility to protect; AU overall compromise not negative

Modernity- Bouman entry 33

- Holocaust used all four pillars of modernity: wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't in the modern age - bouman didn't believe in conventional representation of genocide - philosophies of the enlightenment cemented people as rational, independent, capable individuals who are able to make their own choices- enlightened, appreciate rational faculties - he says that rather of thinking of the Holocaust as happening despite the enlightenment, but because of it in a sense - it would be impossible for Holocaust to unfold in the way that it did had it not been for the advancements that the enlightenment age made possible in the modern age (division of labor, steam engines, bureaucracy, modern rational state)- achievements because of modernity, played majors roles in preparation - industrial killing and death chambers- not possible without innovations of enlightenment - without the idea of division of labor, building of factories, outcome of march of modernity, large scale killing wouldn't have been possible - wrong to divide modernity and the Holocaust - this sets Holocaust apart from other genocidal campaigns- it scaled new heights that could have only been scaled after achievements that were also used for lots of good around the world

Racialization of Tutsis

- Tutsis were racialized through process of genocide - they technically were the same ethnicity- no difference in the ways they lived their everyday lives - in a more abstract session, the Hutus and Tutsis were technically the same ethnic group- but in practice they were treated very differently, especially with the introduction of ID cards by the colonists

Cold War practices

- UN charter article 2.7 used by weak and newly independent states to try to ensure non-intervention, though superpowers intervened (Cold War purposes) - 'domestic jurisdiction' prevailed, no interference - Biafra (Nigerian civil war), 1967-1970: 1967, leader of eastern region of Nigeria declared independence of Biafra; Nigerian government imposed blockade on region, attempted to reassert control; war and famine ensued (huge atrocity) - activism not aimed at "intervention" but at trying to stop Nigerian govt and above all by not sending arms to Nigerian govt - most of this directed against UK govt, which supplied large quantities of arms - other states imposed an arms embargo such as France, though France also supplied overtly the Biafran rebels - UK govt set up observer team to prove there was no genocide - 'Humanitarian intervention' out of the question generally during CW- and other action out of the question too if it would affect CW balance of power/alliances -3 exceptions - india and e Pakistan: in east Pakistan in 1970 Bengali nationalist movement won first free national elections; 1971 military ruler postponed parliament; in March, launched first military operations in E pak to crush opposition; deliberate targeting of civilians (1-3 million dead); Indian parliament describes atrocities as genocide. In December 1971 Indian army invaded, defeat Pakistani forces, Bangladesh independence declared. Indian justification is "refugee aggression" but also that actions of Pakistani military had shocked the conscience of mankind and cited genocide convention; India supported by USSR, Pakistan by US - Tanzania and Uganda: Uganda under Idi Amin, amin accused of mass atrocities; Tanzania and Uganda border tensions, border clashes and outright war in 78- Tanzania invaded and deposed Amin, no humanitarian justification given for intervention - Vietnam and Cambodia: after invasion, Vietnam did accuse Khmer Rouge of genocide and opened museum and tried in absentia Khmer Rouge leaders to genocide - CW politics: Vietnam condemned by west, continued recognition of Khmer Rouge regime at UN

ROs and UN post CW

- UNSG 1992 agenda for peace: regional agencies in many cases possess potential that should be used in preventative diplomacy, peacekeeping, peacemaking, and postconflict peace building - advantages: ROs may be seen as more legitimate actors (P5 excluded); ROs could have better knowledge and expertise due to geographical proximity - disadvantages: ROs could be dominated by hegemon (superior powers) and used by them, neighboring states can have self interested motives for intervening, ROs could lack necessary capabilities; regional security arrangements can function as barriers or building blocks of global governance, can shape or block emerging global norms and or filter the process of transmission of global norms to the national level

Kosovo

- a province of Serbia (mostly Albanian Muslims), site of early signs of Serb nationalism in late 1990s - nonviolent opposition to Serb rule grew throughout 1990s; in 1998, Serbia aimed to control province, and promoted armed resistance (violence ensued) - after 1999 massacre, west threatened to act if Serb forces didn't withdraw from Kosovo - Dayton peace agreement only resolved Bosnia and not Kosovo - to preserve Dayton agreement, tolerate authoritarians; Milosevic in Serbia - Serbs didn't withdraw - April 21 1999: NATO agreed to launch air strikes in Kosovo and Serbia, doing so without UNSC authorization - took 3 months for NATO to force Serbia out of Kosovo; bombing targets were controversial (bombing bridges in Belgrade, some allies argued that there could be civilians on those bridges); also hit Chinese embassy - inside Kosovo, NATO accidentally bombed a convoy of Albanian kosovians who were trying to flee the country - illegal, illegitimate humanitarian war actually had inhuman consequences - controversy over Kosovo: humanitarian intervention without UNSC authorization seen as excuse for great powers to intervene where they want; but if UNSC is blocked and people are suffering, then is the answer no action?

Peacekeeping post CW

- as the CW ended, explosion in number and remit of pk ops to clean up CW mess - agenda for peace, UN activism - between 1988 and 1992, UN approved 13 new operations; number of pk ops launched per decade increased monumentally in 90s - not just classic pk anymore: democratic transitions and running elections, return of refugees, protecting humanitarian aid supplies, training police forces, disarming militia and rebel groups - problem: resources, bureaucracy, US opposition after Somalia 1993 - UN bureaucracy overstretched, UN opposition grows against spending money - 1993 UNSC agrees criteria for pk ops: only when genuine threat to int peace and security, when regional organizations can help, when ceasefire exists parties have committed to peace process, clear political goal in mandate, precise mandate can be formulated, safety of UN personnel - peacekeeping declined in late 1990s re crimination at UN - major powers no longer contribute many pk ops; overwhelmingly from outside the west - after 2000 Brahmin report on pk, return to classical peacekeeping; mandate only to deploy impartial missions requiring minimal use of force with consent of parties - but yet again change: UN pk ops deployed in great numbers to more complex situations than before - 3 transformations: emergence of protection of civilians as mission goal, greater preparedness to use force, stabilization (rather than impartial oversight) - challenges: UN can't meet expectations; traditional principles of pk abandoned

Rationalist approach

- calculation of means end - ideology, fear, us vs them don't matter as much - what matters is terrain, male youth unemployment, aims, resources...these are what determine whether or not genocide will happen - "strategy", cost benefit, calculation - A—>X; cost benefit analysis in order to get from A to X, and genocide may turn out to be the best strategy - Valentino, Final Solutions

Impact of Rwandan genocide on neighbors

- catastrophic, most refugees are genocidal Hutus and take over camps in DRC, NGOs and UN respond to crisis with little attention to Rwanda, not knowing that these people were mostly genocidaires, refugee exodus and rebel activity sparked "Africa's world war" with millions dead - OAU response: before genocide, organization of African unity focuses on peace process but missed warning signs, during genocide OAU didn't use term- condemned massacres but wouldn't take sides, diplomacy focused on stopping war, call for UN - Rwanda aftermath at UN: Barnett- at UN, much blaming of the member states. UN staff proceeded with careers and suffered no consequences. Official enquirer into UN response: failure due to lack of resources and lack of will to take on commitment which would have been necessary to prevent or stop the genocide - further: there can be no neutrality in the face of genocide, no impartiality in the face of a campaign to exterminate a population. Numerous public apologies given, insincere - lessons: see it, name it, stop it: no neutrality, need force in order to stop genocide

Prevention of mass atrocities

- cheaper and more acceptable than response- R2P pillar 2 more widely accepted than pillar 3; requires early warning , early analysis, much work done on risk factors, triggers, root causes, etc - atrocity prevention at UN: at UN level, much work done on how to implement R2P, prevent genocide and mass atrocities - general risk factors of genocide: situations of armed conflict or other forms of instability, record serious violations of HR and humanitarian law, weakened of stable structures, motives or incentives for genocide, capacity to commit atrocity crimes exists, absence of preventative mechanisms, enabling circumstances or preparatory action, triggering factors - specific risk factors: genocide- intergroup tensions or patterns of discrimination against protected groups, signs of intent to destroy in whole or in part a protected group; crimes against humanity: signs of widespread or systematic attack on civilian population, signs of a plan or policy to attack any civilian population, war crimes: serious threats to those protected under humanitarian law, serious threats to humanitarian law

ICJ (International Court of Justice) 2007 Bosnia v Serbia

- clarified states obligations under genocide convention 1. States must not commit genocide 2. Any state has an obligation to prevent genocide if it is happening outside its territory, where it has in its power to contribute to restraining in any degree the commission of genocide 3. Not an obligation to succeed but rather to employ all means reasonably available to them so as to prevent genocide so far as possible - responsibility is incurred if the state manifestly fails to take all measures to prevent genocide which were within its power, and which might have contributed to preventing the genocide - questions arise: does all means reasonable available to then include or require use of force, does use of force require UN authorization?

Dark Side of Democracy

- comparative study of genocide (entry 43) - suggests that instance of ethnic cleansing has gone hand in hand with a form of democracy - murderous ethnic cleansing is a hazard of the age of democracy - age of democracy was to establish rule by the people- but people are defined homogeneously as one identity, one ethnicity- if you don't speak or behave or look like the dominant ethos, then you'll have a hard time - might be an attempt to get rid of minority's and only have the dominant ethnicity - in the age of democracy, it was all about the nation- in time when a nation is defined very narrowly, if citizenship is blood based, can be problematic if you believe that having too much diversity make a nation unstable - idea that democracy is stronger with only one dominant ethos, brings about the ideas of ethnic cleansing - relates directly to cumulative radicalization: murderous cleansing is rarely the initial attempt of leaders - genocide is not usually plan A, but rather a plan that is adopted by some of the elites in a regime after other plans have failed

"Causing serious bodily or mental harm"

- concentration camps in Holocaust, Srebrenica - question of whether these inmates suffered bodily or mental harm - harm: acts done to the body or mind that hinder someone from living a normal and functional life - investigators ask themselves: the victims survived, but can individuals be held responsible for severe bodily and mental harm that they inflicted upon the victims? - harm has to linger or last, make it impossible for a person to lead a normal life - social death- alienated and unable to connect with your culture, family, etc; unable to exist outside experience

Rwandan genocide timeline

- evidence that genocide was prepared at least a year in advance; Hutus arming themselves, training soldiers and civilians. Propaganda present in preparation - 800,000-1 million victims killed; 250,000 to 500,000 women raped - April 6, 1994: presidents plane shot down - April 7: violence begins, UN pk troops do nothing - April 8: Tutsis launch offensive (RPF) - April 9-10: France, US, Belgium remove civilians from Rwanda, leave US troops - April 11: failure of UN guarding 2,000 Tutsi civilians, when they received an order to withdraw to the airport, as a consequence, most of these people died - April 14: Belgium withdraw all troops - April 15: church slaughter, UN withdraws 90% of troops - April 30: UN condemns violence but doesnt use the term genocide - may 17: UN acknowledges genocidal acts happening- agrees to send 5,500 troops, but get massively delayed due to disagreements of financing - May 22: RPF captures Kigali airport - June 22: UN sends 2,500 troops to create safe areas - July 5: RPF captures all of Kigali - July 15: RPF declares victory

The legal definition of genocide

- genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such: 1. Killing members of the group 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part 4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group 5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Kershaw - Hitler

- he says we can distinguish two types of Holocaust historians- intentionalists and structuralists - intentionalists: people who start with the intentions of Hitler, including Mein Kampf, anti-semitism, and his ideologies and focus on those trickling down as the cause of the Holocaust - retrospective determinism: go back to the source and then believe that whatever decision that happened at the beginning had to lead to the outcome (omits ability of actors to make different choices) - misunderstanding was that there was a "blueprint" for Hitler's plan that he carried out. Not true. Correlation between Mein Kampf and Holocaust, but other factors along the way played a role - structuralist: Hitler didn't operate in a closed environment, he operated in a government that he seized and had to work within the institutions; bureaucracy is messy and disorganized; Hitler creates parallel institutions because he didn't trust other Nazis very much; unexpected outcomes; reason to believe in many different ideas of how Jewish problem can be solved, undermines idea of one blueprint carried out - cumulative radicalization in regards to final solution- began with persecution, banning Jews from public life, then detaining them, putting them in camps, plan to ship Jews from Madagascar - mass destruction that happened in the end was not the initial plan in the beginning - radicalization, other solutions not working out, improvised solutions, slowly and slowly it got worse and worse - gradually inch closer to most violent solution to their perceived problems

Browning, Ordinary Men

- heavily criticized for studying the Holocaust by focusing on its perpetrators - received a lot of hate for this particular perspective - goes back to the "evil" "problem from hell" binaries -

Understanding UN responses to genocide and mass atrocities

- high expectations of UN: site of collective legitimization, UNSC can enable action (including sanctions and use of force to stop perpetrators of genocide and mass atrocities), UN has tools to try to prevent mass atrocities - disappointment and disillusionment when UN fails - Gallagher: failure of UN to protect groups in Rwanda and Srebrenica undermines UN authority and international law, therefore poses threat to international order

The ideology of total revolution in pol pots Cambodia- Karl Jackson

- in essence, the revolutions ideology was dominated by four interrelated themes: total independence and self reliance, preservation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, total and immediate economic revolution, and complete transformation of Khmer social values - the theme of national sovereignty and self reliance was raised to extraordinary prominence by the Khmer Rouge, who identified this goal as the number one priority of the Khmer Rouge revolution - pol pot emphasized the need for indigenous goals and methods - self reliance and complete independence meant no formal alliances with any outside power - complete sense of cultural alienation - truly extraordinary aspect of the Khmer revolution is the doctrinaire literalism with which they applied these abstract principles without regard for the awesome costs to Cambodia in terms of diplomatic isolation and massive human suffering

Andrew Woolford

- legal definition is here to stay- we shouldn't ignore it - woolford wants to rethink and add onto it- rethink what constitutes a group - talks about communities where they constantly have to define themselves, includes disease as a form of destruction - notion of harm might be interpreted differently for each group - idea that people from different cultures needed to be modernized - white colonizers thought they were doing a good deed, God's work, giving these children a leg up while entirely ignoring the violent practice involved - considered to be a horrendous practice of colonialism, but it was well intended - double standard: one practice complementary genocidal, other well intended - essence of each practice is to get rid of a certain group of people- woolford says maybe intent is not that helpful, because it could force us to reject something that looks almost exactly like genocide aside from the initial intent behind it - "intent is a catastrophic form of misrepresentation" - search for intent is inappropriate because it then glosses over the fact that the approach the the Canadian case began with misrepresentation- Canadian indigenous populations were erased - ontological destruction in contrast to physical destruction - just because there were less victims, that doesn't mean that destruction was any less violent or consequential

Final solutions

- many explanations of genocide and mass killing seek their causes in the structure and form of government or collective psychology of the societies they take place in - dangers of deep cleavages or dehumanizing attitudes between special groups, the psychological and political consequences of crises such as wars or revolutions and the high concentration of power in nondemocratic systems - severity of ethnic, racial, National, or religious divisions between social groups often fails to provide a strong indicator of mass killing, nor can mass killing be fully explained by undemocratic governments - argues that the search for the cause of mass killing should begin with the specific goals and strategies of high political and military leadership - impetus for mass killing usually originates from a relatively small group of powerful political or military leaders - minimum level of social support necessary to carry out mass killing is easy to achieve - powerful incentives by leaders to encourage participation- leaders don't necessarily need a large portion of the public to support them in order to carry out the killing, they just need passivity and compliance - causes of mass killing are best understood when studied from a strategic perspective - suggests that mass killing is most accurately viewed as a goal oriented policy- a brutal strategy designed to accomplish leaders most important objectives, counter their most dangerous threats and solve their most difficult problems

Can mass atrocities be prevented?

- many officials assume that conflict prevention= mass atrocity prevention. International commission on intervention and state sovereignty referred exclusively to measures to prevent conflict, rather than genocide and other mass atrocities - Bellamy: a conflict prevention mindset includes a blind culture of neutrality that treats all parties as morally equivalent, the pursuit of negative peace at any price in the face of a credible threat of atrocities, and the tendency to believe that prevention ends when violence begins - UN reports on the fall of Srebrenica and Rwanda; acknowledged that a conflict prevention mindset was present in the international community at the time. While there are overlaps between conflict prevention and mass atrocity prevention, there are differences between them: mass atrocities are always unlawful and there is an international consensus that they need to be prevented, whereas legitimate reasons and circumstances exist for why arms are taken up within and between states. Prevention of violent conflict is a very broad area, whereas mass atrocity prevention is more focused. - majority of cases of mass atrocities have occurred during armed conflict, but significant proportion occur outside of or after the fighting has ended. Mass atrocities are not just a subset of violent conflict - need a mass atrocity lens: the risk that mass atrocities could occur should be part of the processes of assessing situations, discussing policy options and designing policies - development of mass atrocity prevention agenda: issue goes back to lessons learned from Rwanda and Srebrenica: use of force is necessary to stop atrocities; Kosovo lesson- use of force when not authorized by UNSC is controversial: so how do you deal with mass atrocities?

Aftermath of Darfur

- more controversies re use of genocide; lessons learned are unclear - ICC indictments are controversial and sparked backlash - IOs that have responded include UN, NATO, AU, EU - one key lesson learned: force necessary to stop atrocities (but little political will to use force - debates over naming genocide can detract from discussions over what to do - use of inquiries and expert commissions - all 3 cases: govt can be held responsible for atrocities, and it's not always like that - would using the term genocide to describe atrocities change international response? Why so much debate about the use of the term?

EU

- most integrated RO in the world - largest single market power, sustained long term relationships with most countries on earth - CFSP/CSDP: diplomatic capacities, civilian and military crisis management intervention capabilities - model of conflict resolution; democratic governance; HR protection - lots of optimism by observers that EU could help stop mass atrocities - EU enlargement: membership conditionality a very powerful instrument for enforcing compliance with HR/democracy norms - ICTY conditionality for countries in S/E Europe - for UN special advisors in genocide/R2P: membership conditionality and enlargement is one of EU's most important contributions to mass atrocity prevention - EU's ability to sanction member is limited; EU internal HR regime - Croatia applied for EU membership in 2003, but block of Gotovina and ICTY- eventually delivered to The Hague months later and Croatia joined in 2013 - EU missions: EU has imposed unilateral sanctions on countries over HR violations- protecting civilians, increasingly part of this, but most EU missions are short term, civlian, training missions, or border assistance

Problem with putting genocide in terms of evil and morality

- pointing fingers at inherent forces in people that make them bad shifts the blame off of them (blaming the supernatural or the devil for the horrible actions of individuals) - when the emphasis is on the metaphysical, it becomes easy to forget the human processes that make genocides occur, the massive amount of organization, the government processes, good timing, etc. - genocide as a "problem from hell"- wrong idea about what genocide is about - metaphysical language is too deeply connected to systems of morality and blaming inherent goodness and evil in binary terms - we should stay away from metaphysical language that leads us to take a moral perspective on genocide

Pros and cons of R2P

- pros: states must protect populations, promotes noncoercive and nonforce ways of intervening to help populations, established universal norm of prioritizing human rights, legitimate and legal intervention to save populations - cans: norm not law, responsibility actually falls on most capable, can be used as a mask, question of state sovereignty, can inadvertently increase conflict, controversies over use of military force, many advocate focusing on pillar II which is more universally accepted

Structuralist Approach

- psychological experiments - Milgram's experiment: people are willing to cause other humans pain if they believe that someone of higher authority told them to - ash's experiment: show conformity - normative vs informational - normative: don't want to be in a position where they disagree with the majority - informational: people tend to think that the majority knows better; one person is likely to change their mind and conform if the majority believes they know the right answer - social pressures + environment + people's tendencies for obedience, conformity, and many others= engaging in morally abhorrent acts - Browning, Ordinary Men

Responses to genocide in Bosnia and Srebrenica

- response to war/ atrocities through EC/EU, UN, NATO - atrocities complicate the picture: dealt with by creating ICTY - 1990-91: rise of Serbian nationalism- ties that bind Yugoslav republics together unravel and work Slovenian and Croatian declarations of independence - Slovenia broke free pretty easily - Croatia much more complicated: substantial minority of ethnic Serbs within Croatia, wish to join Serbia, Serbia backs them- war from June 1991 - EC attempts to broker a peace deal, ceasefires all rail in autumn 1991- bring in the UN - UN arms embargo/ sanctions during the 4 years of the conflict - Jan 1992: ceasefire agreed between Croatia and Serbia (Eur diplomatic recognition of Croatia as an independent state) - stopped the war- frozen conflict in Croatia - UNSC agrees classic pk force: UNPROFOR (founded 1992) to monitor and patrol ceasefire in Croatia

UN instruments

- shaming (norm enforcement via HRC), assistance (HRC special procedures), UNSC can set up international courts (ICTY/ICTR), information gathering, diplomacy and mediation, sanctions, peacekeeping, authorization of use of force - HRC shaming and assistance: special enquiries (fact finding missions) in BiH, NK, Syria: special enquiries publicize human rights violations, seek redress, resolutions on HR human rights situations in particular countries, prevention of genocide, shame countries - special advisor on prevention of genocide: post created by Annan in 2004, UNSG Ki-Moon made it full time 2007 - responsibilities include collecting info on massive HR violations and humanitarian law that might lead to genocide, act as a mechanism of early warning to the SG by bringing to their attention situations that could potentially result in genocide, recommend UNSG actions to prevent or halt genocide, enhance UN capacity to prevent genocide - Special advisor on R2P: 2007 post created by Ki-Moon, tasked with developing and refining R2P concept, continuing political dialogue with member states - diplomacy and mediation: chapter VI article 33 requires parties to any dispute, continuance of which is likely to endanger maintenance of international peace and security, to seek a solution by peaceful means; SG offers to help parties make peace - if mediation fails, chapter VII: action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of peace, and acts of aggression - UNSC shall determine existence of a threat to or break of peace, UNSC can call on member states to apply diplomatic, economic sanctions, UNSC may take action as necessary to maintain and restore international peace and security, inherent right of individual or collective self defense if an armed attack, until SC has maintained international peace and security - sanctions: UN applies targeted sanctions either against named individuals or on sectors: smart sanctions - chapter VIII: member states to make availab armed forces for UN action; a military staff committee would advise and assist UNSC re military requirements, provide strategic direction; these articles have not been implemented, instead "classic pk"; blue helmet, only go to countries if invited, are impartial

Why is the definition of genocide so debated?

- shouldn't create too specific archetypes of what genocide is - disagreement stems from the idea that disciplinary ways of doing things have different objectives when coming up with the definition - real word consequences of the definition bring us back to the morality definition - fear of stretching a concept too far, overusing it, and overusing its power (desensitizing it) - our definitions may be informed by the values that we hold - many scholars, against the background of the Holocaust, create definitions based around it. Make it seem like the Holocaust is the correct image of genocide, when in reality it has many different faces - bottom line: so much disagreement because the ways we are socialized and educated lead us to have very different definitions and understandings of the topic

Claudia Card

- social death is central to the evil of genocide - genocide is unlike other mass murder because social death leads us to mourn loss of relationships that create community and set the context that gives meaning to choices and goals - morally there is something distinct about genocide; distinct harm of genocide is loss of identity and of meaning in ones existence, destroying social vitality - genocide targets people on who they are rather than what they have done - destroys victims but also deliberately humiliates them by initiating a loss of control of themselves - Natally alienated- no longer able to pass along culture, language, tradition

Is the Holocaust unique? Yehuda Bauer

- the unprecedentedness of the Holocaust does not lie in the level of brutality reached by the Nazis and their helpers. As far as that goes, little is unique about the Nazis except they went further than their predecessors -one major difference between the Holocaust and other forms of genocide is that pragmatic considerations were central with all other genocides, and abstract ideological motivations less so. With the Holocaust, pragmatic considerations were marginal. No genocide to date had been based so completely on myths, hallucinations, on abstract nonpragmatic ideology, which then was executed by very rational, pragmatic means - a second reason: the Holocaust was unprecedented because of its global character. All other genocides were limited geographically. - a third reason: the intended totality of the Holocaust. According to nazi policy, all persons with three or four Jewish grandparents were sentenced to death for having been born. - the Holocaust is an extreme form of genocide in that it contains the ideological, global, and total character of the genocide of the Jews. The extreme ness of the Holocaust is what makes it unprecedented

Libya

- until 2011, UNSC rarely referred to R2P or even addressed major protection problems in DRC, Sri Lanka (2009), Somalia, South Sudan - but from 2011 and Libya crisis, R2P applied more; and UNSC more involved in protection - 2011: R2P invoked- a rare case in which UNSC and regional actors agree to act - in the midst of "Arab spring" early 2011, rebels in Libya initiate uprising against Gaddafi's regime (no civil society at all in Libya) - Libyan government reacts brutally against protesters and rebels: calls them cockroaches and threatens to wipe them out (explicit threat) - HR violations condemned by Arab League, OIC, and AU- helps enable consensus on UNSC - UNSC resolution 1970 approved unanimously: recalls the Libyan authority's responsibility to protect its population, refers the Libyan government to the ICC for human rights violations, and imposed arms embargo and other smart sanctions- violence continues - march 17 2011: UNSC approves intervention - vote more divided: 10 in favor, 5 absentees - Arab league favored no fly zone (using military force): authorized member states that have notified the SG acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangement, and cooperating with SG, to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack in Benghazi - established a no fly zone and authorizes ms to take all necessary measures to enforce compliance with ban on flights - Arab Leagues opposition to Ghaddafi (suspended Libya from membership) and support for no fly zone led to UNSC resolutions- boost legitimacy of UN action; mentioned in UNSC resolutions 1970 and 1974; UNSG res 1970: welcoming the condemnation by the Arab League, the AU, and the SG -Libya: initially a coalition of the willing intervenes led by France, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Norway, Qatar, Spain, UK, and US; NATO takes over by end of March 2011, but appears to do more than protect civilians (effectively supports rebels against Ghaddafi) and ends involvement shortly after - accusations that this was all about regime change or about resources - NATO accuses of killing civilians: responsibilities while protecting? Did NATO save lives? - situation of country after intervention: almost no aid or diplomatic intervention since 2011; Libya faces terrorism, refugee problems, oil smuggling - AU and Libya: pushed for diplomatic solution, not happy that NATO pushed forward with bombing campaign, strengthened opposition to R2P among many AU states and sparked backlash against R2P

Peacekeeping during CW

-1945-1987: UN established 13 pk operations; Cyprus UNFICYP between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities (pk freeze a conflict situation, which no side may be willing to unfreeze by reaching lasting peace settlement) - MONUC in RC, now DRC- controversial, est 1960 to ensure withdrawal of Belgian colonial forces, but evolved to trying to ensure territorial integrity and stop a civil war, 250 MONUC personnel killed and UNSG Hammerskjold - from then on pk was was only impartial

Key principles of UN charter

1. Article 1: the organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members; all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force; nothing contained in the present charter shall authorize the UN to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state 2. Article 55: the UN shall promote universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction - conflicting principles: state sovereignty vs domestic affairs, non interference (protects weak states from strong ones); "is it permissible to let gross and systematic violations of human rights, with grave humanitarian consequences, continue unchecked?" Annan - arguments for non interference: respecting state sovereignty, helps prevent colonialism and cultural eurocentrism, prevents white savior narrative from spreading, laissez faire helps maintain cultural autonomy, prevents exploitation of resources and colonialism, saving money and resources that would be wasted on conflict - arguments against: maintaining human rights and protecting individuals, moral commitment to refugees, foreign aid is needed sometimes and requested by home country, alienate states who don't ask for help

Precursors to genocide- 10 stages

1. Classification (us vs them) 2. Symbolization (attaching names, descriptions, symbols to everyone in a certain group, need not be negative at this point) 3. Discrimination (legal or informal, not immediate indicator) 4. Dehumanization (portrayal of targeted group as subhuman, inhuman); 3 attempts to explain: - Haslem 2006: 2 aspects, animalistic (denying human uniqueness) and mechanistic (denying human nature); problems: distinctiveness between animalistic and mechanistic is arbitrary, things that are excluded such as objectification, relationship to violence is unclear - Livingstone Smith: "less than human": dehumanization is a way of thinking and not talking - Neilson: genocide shouldn't focus on dehumanization at all- instead, toxification 5. Organization (militia, armed bodies) 6. Polarization (extreme separation of group) 7. Preparation (final solution, wansee conference) 8. Persecution (ghettos, wearing David star, identifying people, lists) 9. Extermination 10. Denial

Cambodian Genocide

1975-1979 attempt to form Communist peasant farming society resulted in deaths by starvation, overwork, and executions. - 1.8 million victims killed by Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot - targets: intellectual and cultural elite from urban areas, anyone connected to previous government, Buddhist monks, ethnic and religious minorities - timeline - 1953: Cambodia becomes independent from France, Kingdom of Cambodia - 1979: Lon Nol overthrows king and declares Khmer Republic (very pro US) - 1975: Khmer Rouge and pol pot overthrow Lon Nol, killings begin immediately, forced deportations of middle class to become agricultural workers. Some describe this as politicide, but because ethnic and religious minorities were also targeted, this falls under classification of genocide) - 1976: rename the republic the democratic Kampuchea (killings continue) - 1977: fighting with Vietnamese begins - 1978: Vietnam officially invades whole country - 1979: Vietnamese forces take over capital, return to norm - 2001: Khmer Rouge tribunal established to try those associates with regime

The crime of genocide comprises both

A physical element (actus reus) and a mental element (mens rea)

Genocide as a form of war- Martin Shaw

Argument suggests that the links between war and genocide are not simply external or causal but are internal to the character of genocide - genocide can be best understood as a form of war in which social groups are the enemies

Pathologies of IOs

Can be dysfunctional, bureaucratic politics, bureaucratic rules disable certain actions, states won't let IOs act - impediments to UN action: UNSC veto and political will: attempts to mitigate this: NGOs current push for no veto in mass atrocity solutions and only France in favor; lack of resources, state sovereignty

US genocide prevention task force

Chaired by Madeline Albright and Stanley Cohen: issued report in 2008, with recommendations to US government - Obama admin includes Samantha power first as adviser and then as US ambassador to UN - presidential study directive on preventing mass atrocities: declared the prevention of mass atrocities and genocide to be a core national security interest and core moral responsibility of the US - atrocities prevention board: a comprehensive whole of government approach to identify and address atrocity threats and oversee institutional changes to prevent genocide and mass atrocities - from 2010 US army issued guidelines for mass atrocity response operations (MARO) - APB has provided early warning - but challenges facing APBs: resources, who is gonna pay for these policies, making voice heard within bureaucracy (and competing interested), gaining commitment from relevant departments especially when people have other things to do, getting government to heed early warnings, connecting the functional prevention with regional desks on policy options and actions. Currently poor outreach to other countries and international organizations; international debate re US foreign policy: no more wars and entanglements, trumps America first policy

R2P origins lie in

Controversies generated over NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999, but also in the deep shame of non-intervention in Rwanda

Causes of Genocide

Crises, revolutions, modernity, environment, religion, war, economics, homogeneity, colonialism, ideology, democracy, ethnic cleansing

Aftermath of genocide

Cultural trauma, changing identity forever, sometimes recovery is impossible (condition becomes more pathological), difference between traumatic stress and psychological trauma, calls for empirical evidence, speaks to issues to prevention and coexistence

Different representations of violence between Holocaust and Rwandan genocide

Distorted view of genocide- normal people equate genocide with the tropes of the Holocaust, create an archetype of what genocide is and if something looks differently, than they view it as a separate problem

NATO

Focused on deterring and managing security threats to alliance only; NATO has the most hard security capabilities of any alliance/RO, but not explicitly developed with the aim of protecting civilians and stopping atrocities; NATO doesn't want to be UN enforcement arm; BiH first case, but unhappy experience (operates from air, couldn't stop ethnic cleansing or Srebrenica genocide, tensions with UN over control). Kosovo another case, questionable legitimacy: operates from air, incidents of killing of civilians, operates without UNSC authorization, didn't prevent EC

UN Structure

General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice, Secretariat - GA: UN's main deliberative and representative organ; all 193 member states of UN represented. Role: if P5 block UNSC action to maintain peace and security, UNGA can recommend action. Used to launch UNEF pk mission 1956, and to impose sanctions on South Africa in 1981- not much since then. -UNSC: responsibly for maintenance of international peace and security; 15 members, P5 (US, UK, Russia, France, China), 10 non permanent members elected by GA from regional groups who serve for 2 years; each member has one vote, but P5 can also veto. Presidency of UNSC rotates monthly - Secretariat: compromises the SG and UN staff members to carry out day to day work; offices in NY, Geneva, Nairobi - Secretary General: chief admin officer of UN, appointed by GA on recommendation of SC for 5 yr renewable term -Human rights council: subsidiary body of UNGA, responsible for strengthening promotion and protection of HR and assessing situations of HR violations; made up of 47 states elected by UNGA from regional groups - peace building commission: international government advisory body supporting peace efforts in conflict affected states, 31 member states, propose strategies, critiques of ability to act quickly and effectively and mobilize UN resources

Srebrenica

Genocide of 8,000 Bosnian men and boys and ethnic cleansing of 25-30,000 refugees in Srebrenica, a town in Bosnia by the VRS in July 1995. - 6-16th July 1995: Bosnian serbs capture safe area of Srebrenica, expel all Muslim women and children, execute 8,000 civilian men and boys trying to flee - Dutch battalion stationed in Srebrenica could not prevent it (unarmed, no contact) - only aspect of Bosnian war judged to be genocide (all else= ethnic cleansing) - July 8, 2015: Russia vetoed UNSC resolution commemorating anniversary of Srebrenica genocide because it argued that it was politically motivated and diverse - nov 1999: UNSG Kofi Annan issued report on "the fall of Srebrenica" - international actors viewed the war through a prism of moral equivalency and failed to grasp the Bosnian Serb war aims, namely the creation of a greater Serbia through ethnic cleansing - viewed it as a civil war (everyone guilty) and tried to negotiate with murderous Serbian regime- didn't work - international community must accept its share of responsibility for allowing this to happen due to prolonged refusal to use force in early stages of the war - "the cardinal lesson of Srebrenica is that a deliberate and systematic attempt to terrorize, expel, or murder an entire people must be met decisively with all necessary means, and with the political will to carry the policy through to its logical conclusion...it requires the use of force to bring a halt to the planned and systematic killing and expulsion of civilians

What can be done about genocide and mass atrocities? Can they be prevented?

Inherent difficulties with prevention agenda: what does prevent really mean; how to identify success of prevention (counterfactual) - cushman: "preventionism pervades social science in general; in genocide studies, strong and widely shared belief that genocide is preventable and this is goal of genocide studies - "too many explanations of genocide rely on positivistic and deterministic models that cannot take into account most important aspects of genocide: its contingency, unpredictability, and status as a product of human agency" - genocide could be a product of modernity (so can't be countered)- it happened again and again and again, often during the formation of states; spread of technology, exploration, clearing the land, emerging statehood (products of modernity) open the gate for genocide - add in Gerlach's point about the various social groups behind the state that are involved in conflict/violence- raising doubts about the chances of outside intervention - but cushman still thinks some genocides can be prevented

2 elements of the crime of genocide

Intent and action. Intentional means purposeful. Intent can be proven directly from statements or orders, but more often it must be inferred from a systematic pattern of coordinated acts - intent is different from motive. Whatever may be the motive for the crime, if the perpetrators commit acts intended to destroy a group, even part of a group, it is genocide - the phrase "in whole or in part" is important. Perpetrators need not intend to destroy the entire group. Destruction of only part of a group is also genocide. Most authorities require intent to destroy a substantial number of group members- mass murder. But an individual criminal may be guilty of genocide even if he killed only one person, so long as he knew he was participating in a larger plan to destroy the group

In the case of the Rwandan genocide, the US state department refused to use the term genocide as it was unfolding because

It feared using it would make it become a legal obligation to help (wasn't actually a legal issue so much as a moral issue)

5 acts of genocide

Killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, forcibly transferring children of the group into another group

Task force on EU prevention

Mass atrocities are more likely during periods of regime transition and political instability, as moments of particular vulnerability are approaching, when perceptions that a given group poses an existential threat to another go up are spreading and intensifying within a society, when key actors hold a sufficiently widespread radical/ exclusionary ideology aimed at creating purity, when potential perpetrators of mass atrocities have the capacity to conduct such a campaign, where mass atrocities have been committed in the past

ROs

Much potential to help prevent and stop mass atrocities (expertise, interest, capabilities, legitimacy), but problems apparent (neutrality, capabilities, legacy) Can states be forced to prevent or stop mass atrocities? - yes: moral obligation, R2P, genocide prevention task force, arms embargo - no: P5 has to decide and has vetoing power, when there's conflict within the P5 it's hard to get anything down, difficult to enforce, states aren't willing to participate without incentives, lack of understanding of a region, can't force a country to participate without means of participating

Four protected groups

National, racial, ethnic, religious

Slavery and social death

Orlando Patterson - looked at effects of genocide in a new way, effects that were more pernicious than obvious effects of slavery - social death distinguishes genocide from other mass atrocity

Different definitions of genocide

Politicide, gendercide, cultural genocide, colonial genocide- all wondering whether these should be included in the definition of genocide - the "number" question brought up by Charny in "Genocidal Massacre": genocide in the generic sense is the mass killing of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an allowed enemy, under conditions of the essential defenseless and helplessness of the victims"

Arab Spring in Syria

President: Bashar al-Assad: (2000 - Present) -determined to cling to power spliffs, has promised reform since 2000, when he inherited power from his father Hafez, but little has changed. Reasons for opposition: *a Shiite leader, when approximately ¾ of the population are Sunnis. *history of oppression under the al-Assad family dating back to 1971. *dominance of the economy by the Shia and the Christians. - uprising against Assad begins in early spring 2011- regime response brutality includes use of chemical weapons, opposition fractures and now includes extremist IS; civil war - 2 special envoys of UNSG/LAS resigned (Annan, Brahimi) - 1 UN ceasefire monitoring mission deployed for a few months (2012) and then withdrawn with absence of ceasefire - UN has overseen the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons - Russia and China have vetoed numerous draft UNSC decisions re Syria- including referral to ICC - HRC has approved numerous resolutions condemning human rights violations in Syria and sent a special enquiry -NGOs have documented crimes against humanity, war crimes - numerous UN officials, diplomats, etc have condemned lack of UNSC action - Arab league tried to broker a peace plan in Syria in 2011- wanted to forestall a NATO/western intervention in Syria - but Syria didn't implement it; Arab league suspended Syria

Three perspectives of genocide

Rationalist, structuralist, culturalist

R2P

Responsibility to protect; theory that outside powers may intervene to stop regimes from abusing their own citizens - just because all of these member states agreed, this isn't law- no legal backing - 3 pillars: 1) the state carries the primary responsibility for protecting populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing; 2) the international community has a responsibility to encourage and assist states in fulfilling this responsibility; 3) if the state is failing to do so, the international community has the right to intervene within reason - world summit document accepted by all states at the time - outcome: only UNSC can authorize intervention; no restrictions on P5 veto, we are prepared to take action on a case by case basis - 2007: Ki Moon creates post of special advisor on R2P tasked with developing and refining the R2P concert and with continuing a political dialogue with member states and other stakeholders on further steps toward implementation

Kenya: success of prevention?

Role of external intervention in Kenya 2007-08 considered to be an example of successful prevention

UN Charter

The founding document of the United Nations; it is based on the principles that states are equal, have sovereignty over their own affairs, enjoy independence and territorial integrity, and must fulfill international obligations. The Charter also lays out the structure and methods of the UN. - signed June 26 1945 in San Fran, reflects lessons of WW2 and failed League of Nations - aims: to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation in solving international economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian problems, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights

Darfur Genocide

The genocide where the Arabs in Sudan are trying to wipe out the blacks. They are destroying their cattle, crops, killing them. Many refugees are moving to Chad and Jebel Moon. The UN is trying to send in peace-keeping troops Background: violence broke out in Darfur in 2003: 2 rebel groups vs govt - govt reacted brutally, use of janjaweed militia - by late 2003/2004, some UN officials call for action. April 2004: UNSG Annan sent 3 factfinding missions to region, all highlighted human rights violations - July 2004: UN issues arms embargo and smart sanctions on individuals, but it hits both sides of conflict - genocide? NGOs/journalists/ public opinion in US in 2004: increasingly agitated re genocide in Darfur - Sep 2004: sec of state Colin Powell described it as "possibly" a genocide - sep 2004: US requests UNSC- under article 8 of genocide convention- to take action as it considers appropriate for prevention and suppression of genocide - sep 2004: UN sets up international commission of inquiry to Darfur to investigate allegations of HR violations, determine if genocidal acts occurred - Jan 2005: commission found many HR and humanitarian law violations, but said Sudanese govt not committing genocide (cannot prove genocidal intent) - speculation of commission being biased, was told not to find genocide evidence - UNSG only referred matter to the ICC: US didn't block this; no sanctions - ICC indicted some individuals, including Sudanese President al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes - debates about use of term genocide more muted in Europe- no support for intervention, EU agreed to send short term, small mission to try to protect Sudanese refugees in chad (not too effective)

A sociological definition- Helen Fein

Three problems repeatedly noted by critics of the UN genocide convention: 1. The gaps in groups covered 2. The ambiguity of "intent to destroy a group as such" 3. And the inability of non-state parties to invoke the convention and the failure to set up an independent enforcement body - the convention has been criticized for omission of political groups and social classes as target groups - believes that UNGC definition of genocide can be reconciled with an expanded sociological definition if we focus on how the core concepts are related - protected groups were conceived as basic kinds, classes, or subfamilies of humanity, persisting units of society- what is distinctive is that these groups are based on birth rather than by choice. - one could argue that political, sexual, and class dominated status groups are basic containing elements of community - a new sociological definition should include the following elements: it should clearly denote the object and process under study and discriminate the latter from related processes, it should stipulate constructs which can be transformed operationally to indicate real world observable events, and the specification of groups covered should be consistent with our sociological knowledge of both the persistence and construction of group identities in society, the variations in class, ethnic/racial, gender, class/political consciousness and the multiplicity and interaction of people's identities and statuses in daily life

Arab League

a regional political and economic organization focused on Arab unity and development - not very active, capabilities extremely limited, Libya and Syria are exceptions to. On interference norm

1948 Genocide Convention

any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group - another definition: a form of one sided mass killing in which a state intends to destroy a group in the same of a specific unifying characteristic as seen by the perpetrator

African Union

organization formed in 2002 to promote unity among African states and to foster development and end poverty - replaces OAU in aftermath of Rwandan genocide - AU constitutive act article 4: prohibition of the use of force, non interference, right of the Union to intervene in a member state pursuant to a decision of the assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity - emphasis on peaceful coexistence - emergence of African peace and security architecture - AU political and security council: African standby force; continuent wide early warning system; panel of the wise - African countries are among top contributors to UN pk missions, though need logistical help; AU has deployed missions to Burundi, Sudan/Darfur, Somalia, the CAR, and Comoros- all depend on external donor support - between 2008 and 2011, African states provided only 2% of funding to cover peace and security efforts - current AU mission in Somalia is completely dependent on EU and UN - EU's African peace facility provides support for most of AU's operations - have been concerns about professionalism of AU troops