Criminal Law Commons^™

Genocide Memorialization Through Law In Bosnia And Herzegovina: Reconciling The Irreconcilable?, Carna Pistan

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article focuses on the law banning genocide denial and other war crimes and the glorification of convicted war criminals imposed in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the former High Representative Valentin Inzko in mid-2021 to facilitate the country’s reconciliation process. It first positions the genocide denial ban into the vast category of memory laws by examining its content and scope, as well as the reactions and consequences it has provoked up to now. The article maintains that an internationally imposed memory law cannot create reconciliation in a deeply divided society. It shows, on the contrary, that the imposed legislation has …

Book Review: Derviš M. Korkut: A Biography—Rescuer Of The Sarajevo Haggadah, Ehlimana Memišević

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

At the beginning of 2020, the Sarajevo-based publishing house El-Kalem, released a biography of Derviš M. Korkut, a Bosniak hero, to whom Yad Vashem posthumously awarded Righteous among the Nations on December 14, 1994.

Winston Churchill's words, with which the author begins the biography—that the Balkans produce more history than they can handle—best describe the difficult times in which Korkut lived. For Korkut and his fellow Bosnians, these difficult times lasted from the beginning of the 20th century to its very end.

The book is based on exhaustive archival research and reconstructs Korkut’s life very precisely, while the concise overview …

Groups Defined By Gender And The Genocide Convention, Filip Strandberg Hassellind

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article explores the crime of genocide in connectivity to groups defined by gender. Its aim is to investigate whether including groups defined by gender as a protected group in the Genocide Convention appears legally plausible. It begins by probing the historical origins of the concept of genocide. This exposition emanates into an analytical examination of the rationale of protecting human groups in international criminal law. Against this background, the article advocates an understanding of the crime of genocide as a rights-implementing institute. Subsequently, it employs an ejusdem generis analysis to assess whether groups defined by gender are coherent with …

Book Review: Prosecuting Corporations For Genocide, Sarah Federman

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Nineteen Minutes Of Horror: Insights From The Scorpions Execution Video, Iva Vukušić

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

After the fall of Srebrenica in summer of 1995, the Scorpions unit, dispatched to support the Bosnian Serb Army as it took over the enclave, shot six men in Trnovo. The men, three of whom were underage, were some of thousands of Bosnian Muslims that fell into the hands of Bosnian Serb troops, and that were executed in the days and weeks following July 11th. A member of the unit filmed the execution. Fragments of the video were first shown during the Slobodan Milosevic trial, and multiple times in the years after, in the courtrooms in The Hague and Belgrade. …

Book Review: La Muerte Del Verdugo: Reflexiones Interdisciplinarias Sobre El Cadáver De Los Criminales De Masa, Vincent Druliolle

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Review of La Muerte del Verdugo. Reflexiones Interdisciplinarias Sobre el Cadáver de los Criminales de Masa, ed. Séviane Garibian (Buenos Aires: Miño y Dávila editores, 2016)

Book Review: The Betrayal: The Nuremberg Trials And German Divergence, Anton Weiss-Wendt

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Punishing Genocide: A Comparative Empirical Analysis Of Sentencing Laws And Practices At The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda (Ictr), Rwandan Domestic Courts, And Gacaca Courts, Barbora Hola, Hollie Nyseth Brehm

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article compares sentencing of those convicted of participation in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. With over one million people facing trial, Rwanda constitutes the world’s most comprehensive case of criminal accountability after genocide and presents an important case study of punishing genocide. Criminal courts at three different levels— international, domestic, and local—sought justice in the aftermath of the violence. In order to compare punishment at each level, we analyze an unprecedented database of sentences given by the ICTR, the Rwandan domestic courts, and Rwanda’s Gacaca courts. The analysis demonstrates that sentencing varied across the three levels—ranging from limited time …

Case Note: Case Of Vasiliauskas V. Lithuania In The European Court Of Human Rights, Stoyan Panov

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Imagined Identities: Defining The Racial Group In The Crime Of Genocide, Carola Lingaas

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The provisions on genocide protect four exclusive, amongst others the racial, groups. Yet, international criminal tribunals are manifestly uncomfortable with collective groupings and interpret ‘race’ rather inconsistently. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to a subjective approach based upon the perpetrator’s perception of the targeted group. The victim’s membership is accordingly not determined objectively, but by the perception of differentness. This article incorporates the theory of imagined identities into law, thereby providing tribunals with a tool to define ‘race’. Its essence is that even if the group does not exist, it must be granted protection because of its perceived and thereby …