- Genocide Prevention III
- Sites of Indigenous Genocide
- Definitions of Genocide I
- Prosecutorial Roadblocks in International Criminal Courts & Tribunals
- Film Session B
Day 1, 10 July 1530-1700 Session 3
Genocide Prevention III |
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| Location | W332, Level 3, Forgan Smith |
| Chair | Tibi Galis; Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation |
| The erga omnes Duty to Prevent Genocide: Naming and Shaming Past Situations to Prevent Future Acts of Genocide | |
| Authors | Björn Schiffbauer, University of Cologne |
| Abstract | In contrast to prosecuting and punishing committed acts of genocide, the 1948 Genocide Convention is silent as to means of preventing future acts. Its Article I only mentions that a duty to prevent genocide exists. Although it is widely accepted that this is a jus cogens duty, there is still no reliable consent in international law as to the content of that duty. Therefore, the pro-posed paper seeks to fill this gap in the light of the object and purpose of the Genocide Convention. It provides and discusses a minimum requirement approach which sketches the indispensable state actions to comply with the duty to prevent. The offered solution sounds simple at first glance: naming and shaming situations of genocide is the least every state can and must do in order to comply with Article I of the Convention. But problems begin when this duty to name and shame is not restricted to ongoing situations but also reaches back to past situations even from times before the Convention was in force. This paper’s (arguably provocative) assumption is that even those situations – e.g. the 1915 Armenian genocide or atrocities of colonial powers against indigenous people – must be named and shamed today because this also falls under Article I. Even though the Convention is not retroactive, events from the pre-Convention era fall outside that non-retroactivity. They rather are necessary links to strengthen a general awareness what constitutes genocide and by that cater to the purpose to prevent future acts of genocide. |
| Biography | Björn Schiffbauer, born in 1981, studied law at the Universities of Passau and Cologne, Ger-many (2002-2007). After his first state exam, he worked as a research fellow and lecturer in international law at the University of Cologne where he finished his award-winning doctoral thesis on preventive self-defence in international law (490 pages) in 2011. After his legal clerk-ship (‘Referendariat’) in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Asunción/Paraguay and Lima/Peru (2010-2012), he worked as a senior lecturer at the newly founded Institute for International Peace and Securi-ty Law (University of Cologne). During that period, he published an Article-by-Article com-mentary on the Genocide Convention (468 pages, together with Professor Christian Tams and Dr Lars Berster). Since 2013 he works as a senior lecturer at the Institute for Public Internation-al Law and Foreign Public Law (University of Cologne) where he is working on his habilitation to gain a full professorship. |
| Legislative Engagement for the Prevention of Genocide and other Atrocity Crimes: Understanding and Expanding the Legislative Role in Supporting Domestic and International Atrocity Prevention Policy | |
| Authors | Jack Mayerhofer, Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation |
| Abstract | This paper explores the role of Members of Parliament and legislative bodies in the prevention of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes. While there has been a strong focus on efforts of the executive branch of States to prevent mass atrocities, less attention has been given to the critical role that legislators play in promoting the prevention of such crimes both at home and abroad. Legislators serve three essential functions in the field of atrocity prevention; guaranteeing legislative oversight for State policy, advocating for prevention-related issues, and allocating resources to support such initiatives. Despite this, to date the majority of analysis of State-led atrocity prevention policy has not, to a sufficient degree, incorporated legislative roles. This paper examines how parliamentarians understand their role in preventing atrocities and equally importantly how this role can be improved, so they can be a more prominent actor in developing comprehensive genocide prevention policy. Finally, this paper analyzes the importance of legislative support to an emerging trend in the field of atrocity prevention, National Mechanisms for the Prevention of Genocide and Other Mass Atrocities. National Mechanisms are inter-ministerial State bodies dedicated to the prevention of atrocity crimes. The link between legislatures and National Mechanisms will be a crucial partnership for ensuring successful prevention policy both domestically and abroad. This paper will be further enriched by the outputs of a roundtable discussion on this subject by a group of parliamentarians from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America that will take place in April 2017. |
| Biography | Jack Mayerhofer is the Coordinator of the Office of the Executive Director and the Africa Programs New York Liaison at the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR). In addition, Jack heads AIPR’s work with legislators for atrocity prevention. He earned a B.S. in French and Linguistics from Penn State University and an M.S. in Global Affairs from Rutgers University where he worked in the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights. As Coordinator of the Executive Office, he supports all programs at AIPR, and has organized trainings for government officials in Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America. Mr. Mayerhofer also coordinates AIPR’s regional program in Africa working directly with National Mechanisms for atrocity prevention in States throughout the Great Lakes Region. Finally, Jack leads AIPR’s parliamentarian program which seeks to engage Members of Parliament from across the globe to improve the legislative role in atrocity prevention. |
| Religion and Genocide Prevention | |
| Authors | Kate Temoney, Montclair State University |
| Abstract | Religious belief is rarely the main or only driving factor in genocide, yet it is not merely ancillary to genocide. Religion—meaning religious rhetoric, religious actors, and the support of religious institutions—potentiates violence in a particular manner due to its sacred referents that intensify and transcend reality. However, the ambivalence of religion makes its incendiary potential as powerful as its obviating potential. For example, the involvement or resistance of religious institutions in genocide can have a profound impact on the success or failure of genocidal movements.” Nonetheless, “the idea of engaging religious leaders and organizations in order to resist the spread of genocide has been ignored by those working in the growing field of genocide prevention.” Therefore, I offer the three typologies of “othering,” justification, and authorization to identify ways in which religion abets genocidal violence as method for identifying the most salient ways religion can neutralize these intersections can forecast or prevent genocide. I propose several prevention strategies involving religion (with illustrations): (1) cultivation of habits of immanent critique, (2) assistance with truth, reconciliation and interreligious efforts, (3) bearing witness to victims, and (4) coordination with government organizations in genocide prevention efforts—understanding these suggestions are not without challenges. Ultimately, I conclude that without political will, prevention efforts are likely to fail. The greatest role religion can play in genocide prevention is not in forecasting its perpetration but in creating a climate that reduces the likelihood of genocide occurring in the first place. |
| Biography | Kate E. Temoney is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at Montclair State University. She holds a B.A. from Wake Forest University in Psychology and Religion, an M.Ed. from The College of William & Mary in Higher Education Leadership, and an M.A. and PhD in Religion from Florida State University. Her research areas include Buddhist applied ethics, human rights, the problem of evil, and the just war tradition. Her most recent and upcoming publications are a chapter on religion and genocide in the Routledge History of Genocide (Routledge, May 2015), an article in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, titled “The 1994 Rwandan Genocide: The Religion/Genocide Nexus, Sexual Violence, and the Future of Genocide Studies” (forthcoming), and an encyclopedia article on Jainism and warfare (forthcoming). |
Sites of Indigenous Genocide |
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| Location | W349, Level 3, Forgan Smith |
| Chair | Andrew Woolford; University of Manitoba |
| State Crime, Settler Colonialism and Colonial Genocide | |
| Authors | Michael Grewcock, University of New South Wales |
| Abstract | This paper addresses aspects of a wider project on state crime and colonialism in Australia. Drawing on the 1837 Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes, the paper starts by discussing how contemporary frameworks for state crime can be applied to 18th and 19th century colonial violence and displacement. The paper discusses how the Select Committee reflected debates within the British establishment about the management of the colonies, and the dominant paradigm of progress that normalised social marginality, cultural irrelevance and necessary subjugation to empire. The paper then moves to consider the underlying dynamics of settler colonialism in Australia that necessitated seizure of the land and the destruction of Aboriginal communities. In doing so, it engages with the work of Glen Sean Coulthard, David Harvey and Damien Short to discuss whether Marx’s writings on primitive accumulation provide a framework for understanding settler colonialism; whether primitive accumulation should remain temporally framed as a foundational stage of capitalism; and whether a more developed theory of primitive accumulation might add to structuralist approaches to colonial genocide. |
| Biography | Dr. Michael Grewcock teaches Criminology and Criminal Law in the Faculty of Law at UNSW Australia. His major areas of research are state crime, criminal law, border policing and settler colonialism. He is a member of the Editorial Board and current reviews editor of the State Crime Journal, and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Howard Journal of Crime and Justice. He is a co-author of David Brown et al, Criminal Laws, 5th and 6th editions, and author of Border Crimes: Australia’s war on illicit migrants (2009). |
| Re-Tracing the Trail: The Ambivalent Embodiment of Genocidal Memory on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail | |
| Authors | Kerry Whigham, Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Rutgers University |
| Abstract | This presentation analyzes the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, a network of memory sites related to the 1838-39 forced removal of the Cherokee people. It demonstrates the complex attitude that the United States has as a settler colonial state and, therefore, as a perpetrator of atrocity violence. After elucidating the historical realities of the Trail, I introduce existing theory on what many describe as the continuing genocidal nature of settler colonialism (Moses 2004, 2008; Moses and Stone 2007; Woolford, Benvenuto, and Hinton 2014; Simpson 2014; Woolford 2015; Short 2016) to demonstrate how genocidal violence against native groups is not only a thing of the past. This presentation uses ethnographic research gathered from interviews and participant observation, along with the methodological tools offered by performance, memory, and genocide studies, to facilitate a close reading of specific sites within this network, as well as the Trail as a whole. I discuss how sites both respond to and reproduce the violence of this genocide. Drawing on LaCapra’s notion of empathic unsettlement (2014), I discuss how embodied encounters with the past can create a compassionate relationship with victimized others that acknowledges the injustices they have experienced, but does not intrude upon their space of victimization. Finally, I explore the embodied experience of traveling the Trail today as a practice that can push visitors to acknowledge their role in providing spaces for settler violence to endure, as well as their responsibility to make new choices that mitigate that violence through positive action (Whigham 2014). |
| Biography | Kerry Whigham received a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University, where his dissertation was passed with distinction. He is the recipient of the Corrigan Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, the Franco Coli Dissertation Award, and NYU’s Global Research Initiative Fellowship in Berlin. He has published articles in The Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Tourist Studies, Material Culture, Women and Performance, and Museum and Society, and has written a chapter for the edited volume Reconstructing Atrocity Prevention, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, as well as a member of the faculty consortium for Stockton University's graduate certificate program in genocide prevention and the Academic Program Officer for Online Education at the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation.? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ? |
Definitions of Genocide I |
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| Location | W431, Level 4, Forgan Smith |
| Chair | Robert Cribb; Australian National University |
| The Many Faces of Genocide – An Empirical Typology | |
| Authors | Timothy Williams, Marburg University |
| Abstract | Genocide is a multifaceted phenomenon with cases as diverse as the industrially implemented Holocaust, the neighbourhood-level violence in Rwanda, the counter-leftist violence in Argentina and the inaptly coined ‘auto-genocide’ in Cambodia. Yet despite their strong diversity, these cases each demonstrate the intent to eliminate a specific victim group. Genocide scholars have developed a plethora of definitions of what constitutes genocide and there is little academic unity on which definition is analytically most useful. But there is considerably more overlap on which cases should count as genocide. This paper attempts a new approach to comparing genocides, not by attempting to develop yet another definition, but instead by developing a typology of genocides, using quantitative and conceptual methodologies. A dataset of cases has been constructed from consolidated lists of genocide, coding various variables for each of these genocides. This paper presents a factor analysis of this dataset, showing empirical similarities between these cases along various variables and clustering them into specific types. These empirical regularities are then developed conceptually to create a broad, theoretically consistent typology, differentiating between various types of genocide. In a final step, the plausibility of this typology is tested by examining the similarities and differences between various key cases and determining how well the typology can account for these. This typology provides genocide scholars with a new, empirically founded approach to thinking about commonalities and variations between cases, allowing for a better comparison and more consistent and nuanced theory-building in the future. |
| Biography | Timothy Williams is a research fellow at the Centre for Conflict Studies at Marburg University, Germany. His research deals with genocide and mass violence and motivations for participating in it, and he has conducted extensive field research experience in Cambodia. His research interest in perpetrators also includes a typology of action in genocide and understanding how perpetrators understand their own participation. He was awarded the Raphael Lemkin Fellow of the Armenian Genocide Memorial and Institute in 2015. He studied at Mannheim University (BA Political Science) and at the London School of Economics (MSc Comparative Politics). Timothy has published in Genocide Studies and Prevention, Transitional Justice Review, the International Journal of Social Research Methodology, among others. |
| Chomsky and Genocide | |
| Authors | Adam Jones, University of British Colombia |
| Abstract | The scholar and activist Noam Chomsky is arguably the most prominent and influential radical intellectual of the post-World War Two era. His career from the Vietnam era onwards has been marked by controversies related to genocide, and the concept has made regular if usually passing appearances in his work. The presentation will utilize a systematic content analysis of Chomsky’s published output and online interviews to outline his deployment of ‘genocide’, his criticisms of the term’s use, and the criticisms to which his own formulations are vulnerable. The particular place of the Jewish Holocaust in Chomsky’s framework will also be considered. |
| Biography | Adam Jones is Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, BC. The third edition of his widely-used textbook, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, was published in January 2017. |
| Biopower and Genocide: The Limits of Biopower as an Explanatory Concept | |
| Authors | Henry Theriault, Worcester State University |
| Abstract | Innovative genocide studies scholarship has recently applied Foucault’s “biopower” concept to genocide. “Biopower” is systematic promotion of life (through public health, psychiatry, etc.) that is an oppressive, warping regulation of life. Foucault contrasts this “power over life” to the “right of death,” state juridical and practical power to kill (through capital punishment, war, etc.). The application of biopower to genocide productively refocuses attention onto the regulative methods used in genocide and genocide’s relationship to eugenic ideologies, and offers an interesting model for the situation of post-genocide survivor communities, especially within perpetrator societies. Viewing biopower, however, as itself potentially genocidal betrays misunderstanding of the concept and the way Foucault links biopower to genocide. For Foucault, popular acquiescence in a regime of biopower depends on the desire to avoid mortality through disease, genocide, etc. Foucault thus opposes genocide to biopower, though acceptance of the latter depends on the threat of the former (or some other form of death infliction). Correctly understood, genocide is not a function of biopower but instead occurs where a biopower regime breaks down, that is, for practical or ideological reasons a population segment in a society (say, Jews in Germany) cannot be adequately subjugated to the biopower regime, and the “power of death” is invoked. Still, the nascent literature is on to something important – aspects of genocide deriving from regimes of control and even life promotion. Use of Foucault’s terms is provisional, however, and adequate analysis of the object of this insight requires going beyond Foucault’s model. |
| Biography | Henry Theriault is Professor in and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Worcester State University (USA). He earned his B.A. in English from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts. Theriault’s research focuses on reparations, victim-perpetrator relations, genocide denial, genocide prevention, and mass violence against women and girls. He has lectured globally genocide issues, and published numerous journal articles and chapters in this area. He is founding co-editor of the peer-reviewed Genocide Studies International, and from 2007 to 2012 he served as co-editor of the International Association of Genocide Scholars’ peer-reviewed Genocide Studies and Prevention. Since 2007, he has chaired the Armenian Genocide Reparations Study Group and is co-author of its March 2015 report, Resolution with Justice. For more details, see his autobiographical reflection in Samuel Totten’s Advancing Genocide Studies: Personal Accounts and Insights from Scholars in the Field (2015). |
Prosecutorial Roadblocks in International Criminal Courts & Tribunals |
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| Location | W426, Level 4, Forgan Smith |
| Chair | Melanie O'Brien; University of Queensland |
| Victim-Perpetrators in Comparative Perspective | |
| Authors | Kjell Anderson, Leiden University |
| Abstract | This paper will apply a socio-legal approach to examine the phenomenon of victim-perpetrators. It will draw from the author’s interview-based research with former Lord’s Resistance Army child soldiers in Uganda and former Khmer Rouge cadres in Cambodia to analyse the socialisation and agency of victim-perpetrators; this analysis will provide context for a discussion of the criminal law notion of duress (coerced violence), as set out in international tribunals. How can duress be applied to organizational contexts where individuals are socialised to commit violence, and where non-compliance can result in severe negative consequences? International criminal law does not deal well with cases of ongoing duress in institutions. This is apparent, for example, in the Ongwen case at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The pre-Trial Chamber has concluded that Ongwen was not under any duress because there was no imminence to the threat. This result does not account for Ongwen’s starting point as a victim forced to perpetrate atrocities, nor does it take into consideration the socialisation of Ongwen in an environment of pervasive and ongoing threat. Classical interpretations of duress are overly narrow and not easily adaptable to organizational contexts. I will advance that an expanded notion of institutionalized duress is warranted where: 1) individuals do not voluntarily join the perpetrator group, 2) they are under strong pressures to commit acts of violence, and 3) they have a well-founded fear of being subject to severe violence or death if they disobey the group. |
| Biography | Kjell Anderson is jurist and social scientist specialized in the study of mass violence and mass atrocities. He has conducted human rights and conflict-related research in the African Great Lakes region, South Asia, and Oceania. This includes work at universities, international organizations, think tanks, NGOs, and international courts. He holds PhD and LLM degrees in International Human Rights (from the National University of Ireland and Utrecht University, respectively), as well as MA and BA degrees in Conflict Studies (from Carleton University and the University of Saskatchewan). He is currently a lecturer at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs at Leiden University (Netherlands). Additionally, he is second vice president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and a member of the Board of Directors of the Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention. His forthcoming book The Criminology of Genocide Perpetrators will be published by Routledge in 2017. |
| Genocide and Superior Responsibility – Special Intent for Omission? | |
| Authors | Michala Chadimova, Amsterdam University; Palacky University Olomouc |
| Abstract | This study will analyse mens rea requirements for a superior in relation to the crime of genocide committed by his subordinates. The specific intent crimes are one of the most controversial aspects of the superior responsibility doctrine. The study will examine the interaction between specific genocidal intent and the superior’s omission to prevent or punish crimes committed by his subordinates. For application of superior responsibility to the crime of genocide, the main question is whether the superior must himself have the genocidal intent. This study will show different approaches, drawing examples from the case law of ad hoc tribunals. In Prosecutor v. Stakic the Trial Chamber found that it must be proved that a superior possessed the requisite special intent, whereas the Appeals Chamber found no difficulty in convicting a superior of genocide based on lower mens rea. The conclusion of the Appeals Chamber met criticism from scholars, which will be also elaborated on in this study. This study will further analyse whether a superior can be convicted based on superior responsibility for genocide in a case of omission. It is an especially important question given to the wording of Article 28 of the Rome Statute, which offers more opportunity for omission of the superior’s duty to prevent or punish. |
| Biography | Ph.D. Candidate at the Olomouc University, the Czech Republic in International and European law and LL.M. candidate at the Amsterdam University in International Public and European Law. Her doctoral research focuses on modes of liability under the international criminal law. Michala has legal experience in national and international prosecution. As an intern, she spent 6 months at the Office of the Prosecutor, the International Criminal Court. She participated in the prosecution of Bosco Ntaganda for war crimes and crimes against humanity. She also served at the Office of the Co-Prosecutor at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Her research and publications focus on the field of international criminal law, especially on modes of liability. |
| The Question of Perpetrator’s Reach and Control in Assessing the Substantiality Requirement: The Letter of the Law versus the Inherent Nature of Genocide | |
| Authors | Onur Uraz, University of Southampton |
| Abstract | The specific intent element in the legal definition of genocide, which is formulated as ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group, as such’, is what morally and technically separates genocide from the other international crimes. However, each phrase of this definition has been subject to serious interpretative challenges. The term ‘in part’ is not an exception. Although the plain reading of the term leads us to conclude that a single member may constitute a part, this contradicts the historical and teleological interpretations. For this reason, the international courts and tribunals developed the so-called ‘substantiality requirement’, which stipulates that the targeted ‘part’ must have a ‘substantial’ nature. A particular question recently raised in respect of this problem is whether the ‘substantiality’ should be considered in relation to the particular perpetrator’s reach and control or to the collective attack. The proponents of the former view suggests an ‘individualized approach’ by pointing out that the stigma of genocide attaches to the conduct and mindset of an individual. This paper will argue that such view, even though is compatible with the letter of law, undermines the main purpose of the Genocide Convention, which is the protection of certain ‘social units’. Indeed, the social reality indicates that the group destruction entails a collective attack. It will be argued, then, a better approach would be calculating the ‘substantiality’ according to the scope of the collective attack by considering the individual’s act and intent in connection with the broader context and shared intent. |
| Biography | Onur Uraz is a PhD candidate in law at University of Southampton. His research interests lie in international criminal law, international and European human rights law, international adjudication and Turkish criminal law. Onur is currently conducting research on conceptual problems in judicial interpretation of the legal definition of genocide. After receiving his LL.B. degree from Gazi University (Turkey) in 2011, Onur worked as an intern lawyer at one of the main criminal law offices in Ankara. In 2012 he qualified as an attorney at the Ankara Bar Association. He received his LL.M. degree from the University of Glasgow in 2014. |
Film Session B |
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| Location | Moot Court W237, Level 2, Forgan Smith |
| Introduction to the film by Rubina Peroomian | |
| Enemy of the People, Armenians Look Back at the Stalin Terror (1988) | |
| Director | Zareh Tjeknavorian |
| Runtime | 60 minutes |
| Abstract | The smallest of the Soviet republics, Armenia was a microcosm of the Great Terror that swept the entire USSR between the 1930s and Stalin’s death in 1953. Finally, after a lifetime of silence, the human impact of the Terror is explored by ordinary people as they look back at the Stalin years. |