Law Commons^™

Genocide And Jurisdiction: Methods For Achieving Justice Domestically For The International Crimes In Darfur, Matthew N. Thomas

Matthew N. Thomas

The international community as a whole has been reluctant to take action against Sudan for the international crimes being committed in Darfur. However, individual nations, including the United States, have expressed a strong interest in taking proactive measures to achieve justice for those atrocities. Victims of the Sudanese conflict may achieve justice through the domestic courts of the United States. Civilly, the Alien Tort Statute provides a cause of action to foreign citizens for torts committed against them in violation of international law, while the exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act permit personal jurisdiction over individuals acting on behalf …

Adjudicating Genocide: Is The International Court Of Justice Capable Of Judging State Criminal Responsibility, Dermot M. Groome

Dermot M Groome

Last February, the International Court of Justice issued a judgement adjudicating claims by Bosnia and Herzegovina that Serbia breached the 1948 Genocide Convention – the case marks the first time a state has made such claims against another. The alleged genocidal acts were the same as those that have been the subject of several criminal trials in the Yugoslav Tribunal. The judgment contained several landmark rulings – among them, the Court found that a state, as a state, could commit the crime of genocide and the applicable standard of proof for determining state responsibility is comparable to the standard used …

From Incitement To Indictment? Prosecuting Iran's President For Advocating Israel's Destruction And Piecing Together Incitement Law's Emerging Analytical Framework, Gregory S. Gordon

Gregory S. Gordon

On October 25, 2005, at an anti-Zionism conference in Tehran, Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called for Israel to "be wiped off the face of the map" -- the first in a series of incendiary speeches arguably advocating liquidation of the Jewish state. Certain commentators argue that these speeches constitute direct and public incitement to commit genocide. This Article analyzes these arguments by examining the nature and scope of recent groundbreaking developments in incitement law arising from the Rwandan genocide prosecutions. For the first time in the legal literature, the Article pieces together an analytical framework based on principles derived from …

China's Africa Strategy: The Puzzle Of Trade And Reform, Mahmood Monshipouri

Human Rights & Human Welfare

China’s growing presence is certainly one of the most important developments in Africa since the end of the Cold War. The strategy of “trade and non-interference” is how the Chinese government describes its relations with Africa. Oil and metals, such as cobalt, iron ore, and manganese are what China’s manufacturing industry needs; while foreign direct investment and an increase in oil production are what some African governments—especially those in Angola, Congo, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, and Zimbabwe—seek.

August Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“How China's Support of Sudan Shields a Regime Called 'Genocidal'" by Danna Harman. Christian Science Monitor. June 26, 2006.

Incidents Of Genocide In India, Krishna Kumari Areti

Krishna Kumari Areti prof

The author jots down the incidents of Genocide in India from the date of independence till date. India witnessed the first genocide at the time of partition immediately after the independence. The two-nation theory led to the division of the country and the Hindus in India and Muslims in Bengal migrated to their destined homelands. In this process several lives were lost on both sides and women were kidnapped and raped and at times murdered. In this article the mass murders and rapes of thousands of women at the time of partition was elaborately discussed. The then Hyderabad State underwent …

Genocide- An Offence Against Humanity, Krishna Kumari Areti

Krishna Kumari Areti prof

This article gives the definition of the crime in generic terms and in legal terms. A definition by UN insists that there must be mental element, meaning the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such and the physical element which include five acts described in sections a, b, c, d and e. They are killing members of the group, causing serious bodily injury 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 …

May Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency” by Mahmood Mamdani. London Review of Books. March 8, 2007.

Politics Of Naming And Politics Of Responsibility, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Mahmood Mamdani is right to complain that the American—and international—public is unaware of the political complexity of the Darfur conflict. He is also right to point out that selective or inconsistent uses of the terms “genocide,” “civil war,” and “insurgency” can mask covert, or even overt, political agendas. His comparison of Darfur to Iraq is telling. And he is right to point out that even with the best of humanitarian intentions, the presentation of a simplified version of Darfur, in which “Arabs” persecute “Africans,” can play into the “war on terror,” insofar as, in the minds of at least some …

The Return Of Moral Equivalence, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

During the latter stages of the Cold War, one school of ethical analysis, ultimately labeled as “moral equivalence” by the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, measured Western liberal democracies against utopian standards in a radical critique which redefined the political discourse, erasing distinctions between the Soviet Union and its satellites on the one hand and the United States and its allies on the other.

Missing The Point, Colin Thomas-Jensen

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“What would happen if we thought of Darfur as we do of Iraq, as a place with a history and politics—a messy politics of insurgency and counterinsurgency?” (§4). This is the most telling question posed by Professor Mahmood Mamdani in “The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency.” The implication is that the growing public demand for strong international action—military or otherwise—to halt the atrocities in Darfur is somehow unwarranted because people have failed to understand that the systematic crimes against humanity committed against civilians in Darfur (and indeed Iraq) are an inevitability of “the messy politics of insurgency and …

The Moral Vocabulary Of Violence, David L. G. Rice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

What is at stake in labeling a particular incidence of large-scale violence “genocide”? Mahmood Mamdani rightly argues that “genocide” is an insufficient description of the conflict in Darfur. I would suggest that the problematic nature of that terminology goes back to its inception after World War II. Activists have inherited the concept of “genocide” from a particular historical moment. Now, “ genocide” carries unique moral weight in the discourse of international politics. When violence against civilians has been widely accepted as a necessary outcome of the preservation of peace, activists find it necessary to imagine a worse evil than the …

On The Very Idea Of Transitional Justice, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The phrase "transitional justice" has had an amazingly successful career at an early age. Popularized as an academic concept in the early 1990s in the aftermath of apartheid's collapse in South Africa, the phrase quickly gained traction in a variety of global contexts, including Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, and Sierra Leone. A sizeable literature has been generated around it, so much so that one might even call it a sub-discipline with inter-disciplinary qualities. Nonetheless, the concept remains an enigma. It defines the contours of an entire field of intellectual inquiry, yet at the same time it hides more than it illuminates. …

Transnational Networks And International Criminal Justice, Jenia Iontcheva Turner

Michigan Law Review

The theory of transgovernmental networks describes how government officials make law and policy on issues of global concern by coordinating informally across borders, without legal or official sanction. Scholars have argued that this sort of coordination is useful in many different areas of cross-border regulation, including banking, antitrust, environmental protection, and securities law. One area to which the theory has not yet been applied is international criminal law. For a number of reasons, until recently, international criminal law had not generated the same transgovernmental networks that have emerged in other fields. With few exceptions, international criminal law had been enforced …

The International Legal Responsibility To Protect Against Genocide, War Crimes And Crimes Against Humanity: Why National Sovereignty Does Not Preclude Its Exercise, David Aronofsky

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

Good morning everyone. I am pleased to be here as part of this exciting International Law Weekend to participate with my good friend and Rocky Mountains colleague, Professor Nanda, along with Professor Wojcik, to discuss this important topic of The Responsibility to Protect Victims of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.

Intentional Destruction Of Cultural Heritage And International Law, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

This note considers the impact of the ICTY jurisprudence and the 2003 UNESCO Declaration upon two discernible trends in the international law concerning cultural heritage. First, the dissolving of the divide between the protection afforded during period of armed conflict and peacetime. Second, the recognition of the importance of cultural heritage to subjects beyond the State in which it may be located: namely, humanity generally (including future generations), and non-state groups. These trends are complementary and reflect the increasing significance of the protection and promotion of cultural diversity in international law. Yet, they are also being met with significant trepidation …

Armed Resistance To The Holocaust, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

Contrary to myth of Jewish passivity, many Jews did fight back during the Holocaust. They shut down the extermination camp at Sobibor, rose up in the Warsaw Ghetto, and fought in the woods and swamps all over Eastern Europe. Indeed, Jews resisted at a higher rate than did any other population under Nazi rule. The experience of the Holocaust shows why Jews, and all people of good will, should support the right of potential genocide victims to possess defensive arms, and refutes the notion that violence is necessarily immoral.

Can We Compare Evils? The Enduring Debate On Genocide And Crimes Against Humanity, Steven R. Ratner

Articles

A look back at the twentieth century reveals that the most critical steps in the criminalization of mass human rights constituted the academic work of Raphel Lemkin and his conceptualization of genocide; the International Military Tribunal Charter’s criminalization of crimes against humanity and the trials that followed; and the conclusion and broad ratification of the Genocide Convention. The Convention was the first treaty since those of slavery and the “white slave traffic” to criminalize peacetime actions by a government against its citizens. Since that time, customary international law has recognized the de-coupling of crimes against humanity from wartime.

Why Sudan? Ambiguous Identities Forge Persistent Conflict, Laura Nyantung Beny

Articles

The following essay is excerpted from the prospectus for Perspectives on Genocide and Genocidal Violence in the Sudan, edited by Law School Assistant Professor Laura N. Beny, Sondra Hale of UCLA, and Lako Tongun of Claremont Colleges, California. The book is under advance contract for publication by the University of Michigan Press. Its 14 chapters, written by prominent historians, anthropologists, social scientists, political leaders, and others, “tell overlapping stories about the social constructions of race, gender, culture, and religious and political loyalties, each of which underlies the longstanding conflict” in Sudan, according to Beny, whose essay in the book is …

Remarks On Intervention, Juan E. Mendez

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Humanitarian Intervention: The New Missing Link In The Fight To Prevent Crimes Against Humanity And Genocide, Paul Williams

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Anfal Genocide: Personal Reflections And Legal Residue, Michael A. Newton

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

There is a very deep and almost palpable sense in which justice feeds the soul of the Kurdish people. For the Greek philosophers, the pursuit of justice was the highest calling of human endeavor. Many Kurds dedicated their lives to pursuing peace and justice in the aftermath of the Anfal campaigns of 1988. In my work with Iraqi judges and lawyers, I have grown to respect their sincerity and sheer physical courage. For nearly seven years now, I have been privileged to work extensively with Iraqi judges and lawyers, and I was involved in the preparations for the Anfal genocide …

Balancing Lives: Individual Accountability And The Death Penalty As Punishment For Genocide (Lessons From Rwanda), Melynda J. Price

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The purpose of this Article is not to answer the question of whether the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for genocide. One could safely argue that there is an emerging norm in international law against the death penalty, but individual countries have maintained their right to use the death penalty and continue to do so in code and in practice. This Article, using Rwanda as a case study, evaluates the real outcomes of such discrepancies in punishment at the domestic and international level, and the ability of both approaches to bring justice to the victims of genocide. Both domestic …

Holding States Accountable For The Ultimate Human Right Abuse: A Review Of The International Court Of Justice’S Bosnian Genocide Case, Scott Shackelford

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The Judgment Of The International Court Of Justice In Bosnia’S Genocide Case Against Serbia And Montenegro, Susana Sácouto

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Rwanda’S Troubled Gacaca Courts, Christopher J. Le Mon

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

In The Footsteps Of Raphael Lemkin, Michael Bazyler

Michael Bazyler

No abstract provided.