This book presents a review of historical and emerging legal issues that concern the interpretation of the international crime of genocide. The Polish legal expert Raphael Lemkin formulated the concept of genocide during the Nazi occupation of Europe, and it was then incorporated into the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This volume looks at the issues that are raised both by the existing international law definition of genocide and by the possible developments that continue to emerge under international criminal law. The authors consider how the concept of genocide might be used in different contexts, and see whether the definition in the 1948 convention may need some revision, also in the light of the original ideas that were expressed by Lemkin. The book focuses on specific themes that allow the reader to understand some of the problems related to the legal definition of genocide, in the context of historical and recent developments. As a valuable contribution to the debate on the significance, meaning and application of the crime of genocide the book will be essential reading for students and academics working in the areas of Legal History, International Criminal Law, Human Rights, and Genocide Studies. Chapter 12 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003015222

The 1971 genocide in Bangladesh took place as a result of the region's long history of colonization, the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into largely Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, and the continuation of ethnic and religious politics in Pakistan, specifically the political suppression of the Bengali people of East Pakistan. The violence endured by women during the 1971 genocide is repeated in the writing of national history. The secondary position that women occupy within nationalism is mirrored in the nationalist narratives of history. This book engages with the existing feminist scholarship on gender, nationalism and genocide to investigate the dominant representations of gender in the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh and juxtaposes the testimonies of survivors and national memory of that war to create a shift of perspective that demands a breaking of silence. The author explores and challenges how gender has operated in service of Bangladeshi nationalist ideology, in particular as it is represented at the Liberation War Museum. The archive of this museum in Bangladesh is viewed as a site of institutionalized dialogue between the 1971 genocide and the national memory of that event. An examination of the archive serves as an opening point into the ideologies that have sanctioned a particular authoring of history, which is written from a patriarchal perspective and insists on restricting women's trauma to the time of war. To question the archive is to question the authority and power that is inscribed in the archive itself and that is the function performed by testimonies in this book. Testimonies are offered from five unique vantage points - rape survivor, war baby, freedom fighter, religious and ethnic minorities - to question the appropriation and omission of women's stories. Furthermore, the emphasis on the multiplicity of women's experiences in war seeks to highlight the counter-narrative that is created by acknowledging the differences in women's experiences in war instead of transcending those differences. An innovative and nuanced approach to the subject of treatment and objectification of women in conflict and post conflict and how the continuing effects entrench ideas of gender roles and identity, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of South Asian History and Politics, Gender and genocide, Women and War, Nationalism and Diaspora and Transnational Studies.

Is the Armenian Genocide a strictly historical matter? If that is the case, why is it still a topical issue, capable of causing diplomatic rows and heated debates? The short answer would be that the century old Armenian Genocide is much more than a historical question. It emerged as a political dilemma on the international arena at the San Stefano peace conference in 1878 and has remained as such into our days. The disparity between knowledge and acknowledgement, mainly ascribable to Turkey's official denial of the genocide, has only heightened the politicization of the Armenian question. Thus, the memories of the WWI era refuse to be relegated to the pages of history but are rather perceived as a vivid presence. This is the result of the perpetual process of politics of memory. The politics of memory is an intricate and interdisciplinary negotiation, engaging many different actors in the society who have access to a wide range of resources and measures in order to achieve their goals. By following the Armenian question during the past century up to its Centennial Commemoration in 2015, this study aims to explain why and how the politics of memory of the Armenian Genocide has kept it as a topical issue in our days.

This book presents a philosophical history of Tasmania's past and present with a particular focus on the double stories of genocide and modernity. On the one hand, proponents of modernisation have sought to close the past off from the present, concealing the demographic disaster behind less demanding historical narratives and politicised preoccupations such as convictism and environmentalism. The second story, meanwhile, is told by anyone, aboriginal or European, who has gone to the archive and found the genocidal horrors hidden there. This volume blends both stories. It describes the dual logics of genocide and modernity in Tasmania and suggests that Tasmanians will not become more realistic about the future until they can admit a full recognition of the colonial genocide that destroyed an entire civilisation, not much more than 200 years ago.

The appalling story of Hitler's murderous policies aimed at the disabled including tens of thousands of children killed by their doctors. Between 1939 and 1945 the Nazi regime systematically murdered thousands of adults and children with physical and mental disabilities as part of its 'euthanasia' policy. These programmes were designed to eliminate all people with disabilities who, according to Nazi ideology, threatened the health and purity of the German race. Hitler's Forgotten Victims explores the development and workings of this nightmarish process, a relatively neglected aspect of the Holocaust. Suzanne Evans's account draws on the rich historical record, as well as scores of exclusive interviews with disabled Holocaust survivors. It begins with a description of the Children's Killing Programme, in which tens of thousands of children with physical and mental disabilities were murdered by their doctors, usually by starvation or lethal injection. The book goes on to recount the AktionT4 programme, in which adults with disabilities were disposed of in six official centres, and the development of the Sterilisation Law, which allowed the forced sterilisation of at least half a million young adults with disabilities.

This book offers a comprehensive depiction of the causes and consequences of the Rohingya crisis, based on detailed ethnographic narratives provided by hundreds of Rohingya people who crossed the border following the Clearance Operation in 2017. The author critically engages with the identity politics on both sides of the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, and the categorisation of the Rohingya as the people of 'no-man's land' amidst the socio-political and ethno-nationalist dynamics of colonial and postcolonial transition in the region. He then interrogates the role of the international community and aid industry, before providing in-depth policy recommendations based on his own experience working with Rohingya refugees. The book will be of interest to students, scholars, policymakers and NGOs in the fields of migration studies, anthropology, political science and international relations.

Why violence in the Congo has continued despite decades of international intervention Well into its third decade, the military conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been dubbed a "forever war"-a perpetual cycle of war, civil unrest, and local feuds over power and identity. Millions have died in one of the worst humanitarian calamities of our time. The War That Doesn't Say Its Name investigates the most recent phase of this conflict, asking why the peace deal of 2003-accompanied by the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world and tens of billions in international aid-has failed to stop the violence. Jason Stearns argues that the fighting has become an end in itself, carried forward in substantial part through the apathy and complicity of local and international actors. Stearns shows that regardless of the suffering, there has emerged a narrow military bourgeoisie of commanders and politicians for whom the conflict is a source of survival, dignity, and profit. Foreign donors provide food and urgent health care for millions, preventing the Congolese state from collapsing, but this involvement has not yielded transformational change. Stearns gives a detailed historical account of this period, focusing on the main players-Congolese and Rwandan states and the main armed groups. He extrapolates from these dynamics to other conflicts across Africa and presents a theory of conflict that highlights the interests of the belligerents and the social structures from which they arise. Exploring how violence in the Congo has become preoccupied with its own reproduction, The War That Doesn't Say Its Name sheds light on why certain military feuds persist without resolution.

In Indonesia, the events of 1st October 1965 were followed by a campaign to annihilate the Communist Party and its alleged sympathisers. It resulted in the murder of an estimate of one million people - a genocide that counts as one of the largest mass murders after WWII - and the incarceration of another million, many of them for a decade or more without any legal process. This drive was justified and enabled by a propaganda campaign in which communists were painted as atheist, hypersexual, amoral and intent to destroy the nation. To date, the effects of this campaign are still felt, and the victims are denied the right of association and freedom of speech. This book presents the history of the genocide and propaganda campaign and the process towards the International People's Tribunal on 1965 crimes against humanity in Indonesia (IPT 1965), which was held in November 2015 in The Hague, The Netherlands. The authors, an Indonesian Human Rights lawyer and a Dutch academic examine this unique event, which for the first time brings these crimes before an international court, and its verdict. They single out the campaign of hate propaganda as it provided the incitement to kill so many Indonesians and why this propaganda campaign is effective to this day. The first book on this topic, it fills a significant gap in Asian Studies and Genocide Studies.

Writing and Filming the Genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda: Dismembering and Remembering Traumatic History is an innovative work in Francophone and African studies that examines a wide range of responses to the 1994 genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda. From survivor testimonies, to novels by African authors, to films such as Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April, the arts of witnessing are varied, comprehensive, and compelling. Alexandre Dauge-Roth compares the specific potential and the limits of each medium to craft unique responses to the genocide and instill in us its haunting legacy. In the wake of genocide, urgent questions arise: How do survivors both claim their shared humanity and speak the radically personal and violent experience of their past? How do authors and filmmakers make inconceivable trauma accessible to a society that will always remain foreign to their experience? How are we transformed by the genocide through these various modes of listening, viewing, and reading?

Historical Archives and the Historians' Commission to Investigate the Armenian Events of 1915 demonstrates the vital importance of Ottoman and other relevant archives in Turkey for the study of the Armenian question. Historians, assisted by newly discovered or recently published materials, must continually reassess events of the past in order to achieve a rounder view. The Armenian events of 1915 are certainly no exception. This study encourages further engagement between the policy-making and the scholarly communities by indicating the continued importance of past records and documents for today's pressing debates. In order to give a fuller picture, this survey also looks at some major relevant archival sources outside Turkey, including the state of archives of the First Republic of Armenia and those of the Dashnak Party. Yucel Guclu's inquiry sheds light on some of the British records relating to the First World War and its immediate aftermath locked at the National Archives in Kew, London, and he examines the special relevance of repositories in Moscow and St. Petersburg in understanding the Turkish-Armenian conflict. Guclu assesses Turkey's proposal to establish an international historians' commission to investigate the Armenian events of 1915 and reviews in-depth the meanings and implications of the protocols of cooperation signed between Turkey and Armenia on 10 October 2009. By turning a modern eye on historical events, this study gives great and necessary attention to discovering the precise chronology, meaning, and development of the continuing negotiations between Turkey and Armenia.

Whether reburied, concealed, stored, abandoned or publicly displayed, human remains raise a vast number of questions regarding social, legal and ethical uses by communities, public institutions and civil society organisations. This book presents a ground-breaking account of the treatment and commemoration of dead bodies resulting from incidents of genocide and mass violence. Through a range of international case studies across multiple continents, it explores the effect of dead bodies or body parts on various political, cultural and religious practices. Multidisciplinary in scope, it will appeal to readers interested in this crucial phase of post-conflict reconciliation, including students and researchers of history, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, law, politics and modern warfare. -- .

This book provides a juridical, sociopolitical history of the evolution of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Over one million citizens were massacred in less than 100 days via a highly organized, efficiently executed genocide throughout the tiny country of Rwanda. While genocide is not a unique phenomenon in modern times, a genocide like Rwanda's is unique. Unlike most genocides, wherein a government plans and executes mass murder of a targeted portion of its population, asking merely that the majority population look the other way, or at most, provide no harbor to the targeted population (ex: Germany), the Rwandan government relied heavily on the civilian population to not only politically support, but actively engage in the acts of genocide committed over the 100 days throughout the spring of 1994. This book seeks to understand why and how the Rwandan genocide occurred. It analyzes the colonial roots of modern Rwandan government and the development of the political "state of exception" created in Rwanda that ultimately allowed the sovereign to dehumanize the minority Tutsi population and execute the most efficient genocide in modern history.

Historical research into the Armenian Genocide has grown tremendously in recent years, but much of it has focused on large-scale questions related to Ottoman policy or the scope of the killing. Consequently, surprisingly little is known about the actual experiences of the genocide's victims. Daily Life in the Abyss illuminates this aspect through the intertwined stories of two Armenian families who endured forced relocation and deprivation in and around modern-day Syria. Through analysis of diaries and other source material, it reconstructs the rhythms of daily life within an often bleak and hostile environment, in the face of a gradually disintegrating social fabric.

This study recounts the reasons why the order for the Herero genocide was very likely issued by the Kaiser himself, and why proof of this has not emerged before now. In 1904, the indigenous Herero people of German South West Africa (now Namibia) rebelled against their German occupiers. In the following four years, the German army retaliated, killing between 60,000 and 100,000 Herero people, one of the worst atrocities ever. The history of the Herero genocide remains a key issue for many around the world partly because the German policy not to pay reparations for the Namibian genocide contrasts with its long-standing Holocaust reparations policy. The Herero case bears not only on transitional justice issues throughout Africa, but also on legal issues elsewhere in the world where reparations for colonial injustices have been called for. This book explores the events within the context of German South West Africa (GSWA) as the only German colony where settlement was actually attempted. The study contends that the genocide was not the work of one rogue general or the practices of the military, but that it was inexorably propelled by Germany's national goals at the time. The book argues that the Herero genocide was linked to Germany's late entry into the colonial race, which led it frenetically and ruthlessly to acquire multiple colonies all over the world within a very short period, using any means available. Jeremy Sarkin is Chairperson-Rapporteur of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, and is at present Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. He is also an Attorney of the High Court of South Africa and of the State of New York. A graduate of theUniversity of the Western Cape and of Harvard Law School he has been visiting professor at several US universities where he has taught Comparative Law, International Human Rights Law, International Criminal Law and Transitional Justice Southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and Zimbabwe): University of Cape Town Press/Juta

During the twentieth century, the Balkan Peninsula was affected by three major waves of genocides and ethnic cleansings, some of which are still being denied today. In Balkan Genocides Paul Mojzes provides a balanced and detailed account of these events, placing them in their proper historical context and debunking the common misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the genocides themselves. A native of Yugoslavia, Mojzes offers new insights into the Balkan genocides, including a look at the unique role of ethnoreligiosity in these horrific events and a characterization of the first and second Balkan wars as mutual genocides. Mojzes also looks to the region's future, discussing the ongoing trials at the International Criminal Tribunal in Yugoslavia and the prospects for dealing with the lingering issues between Balkan nations and different religions. Balkan Genocides attempts to end the vicious cycle of revenge which has fueled such horrors in the past century by analyzing the terrible events and how they came to pass.

Since the 1980s, transitional justice mechanisms have been increasingly applied to account for mass atrocities and grave human rights violations throughout the world. Over time, post-conflict justice practices have expanded across continents and state borders and have fueled the creation of new ideas that go beyond traditional notions of amnesty, retribution, and reconciliation. Gathering work from contributors in international law, political science, sociology, and history, New Critical Spaces in Transitional Justice addresses issues of space and time in transitional justice studies. It explains new trends in responses to post-conflict and post-authoritarian nations and offers original empirical research to help define the field for the future.

The Banality of Denial examines the attitudes of the State of Israel and its leading institutions toward the Armenian Genocide. Israel's view of this issue has special significance and deserves an attentive study, as it is a country composed of a people who were victims of the Holocaust. The Banality of Denial seeks both to examine the passive, indifferent Israeli attitude towards the Armenian Genocide, and to explore active Israeli measures to undermine attempts at safeguarding the memory of the Armenian victims of the Turkish persecution.

Such an inquiry into attempts at denial by Israeli institutions and leading figures of Israel's political, security, academic, and Holocaust "memory-preservation" elite has not merely an academic significance. It has considerable political relevance, both symbolic and tangible.

In The Banality of Denial--as in Auron's previous work--moral, philosophical, and theoretical questions are of paramount importance. Because no previous studies have dealt with these issues or similar ones, an original methodology is employed to analyze the subject with regard to four domains: political, educational, media, and academic.

The twentieth century has been scarred by political violence and genocide, reaching its extreme in the Holocaust. Yet, at the same time, the century has been marked by a growing commitment to human rights. This volume highlights the importance of history-of socially processed memory-in resolving the wounds left by massive state-sponsored political violence and in preventing future episodes of violence. In Genocide, Collective Violence, and Popular Memory: The Politics of Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, the editors present and discuss the many different social responses to the challenge of coming to terms with past reigns of terror and collective violence.

Designed for undergraduate courses in political violence and revolution, this volume treats a wide variety of incidents of collective violence-from decades-long genocide to short-lived massacres. The selection of essays provides a broad range of thought-provoking case studies from Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. This provocative collection of readings from around the world will spur debate and discussion of this timely and important topic in the classroom and beyond.

A renowned expert on genocide argues that there is a real risk of violent atrocities happening in the United States If many people were shocked by Donald Trump's 2016 election, many more were stunned when, months later, white supremacists took to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting "Blood and Soil" and "Jews will not replace us!" Like Trump, the Charlottesville marchers were dismissed as aberrations-crazed extremists who did not represent the real US. It Can Happen Here demonstrates that, rather than being exceptional, such white power extremism and the violent atrocities linked to it are a part of American history. And, alarmingly, they remain a very real threat to the US today. Alexander Hinton explains how murky politics, structural racism, the promotion of American exceptionalism, and a belief that the US has have achieved a color-blind society have diverted attention from the deep roots of white supremacist violence in the US's brutal past. Drawing on his years of research and teaching on mass violence, Hinton details the warning signs of impending genocide and atrocity crimes, the tools used by ideologues to fan the flames of hate, the origins of the far-right extremist ideas of white genocide and replacement, and the shocking ways in which "us" versus "them" violence is supported by racist institutions and policies. It Can Happen Here is an essential new assessment of the dangers of contemporary white power extremism in the United States. While revealing the threat of genocide and atrocity crimes that loom over the country, Hinton offers actions we can take to prevent it from happening, illuminating a hopeful path forward for a nation in crisis.

This book provides a detailed analysis of one of the most prominent and widespread international phenomena to which criminal justice systems has been applied: the expression of revisionist views relating to mass atrocities and the outright denial of their existence. Denial poses challenges to more than one academic discipline: to historians, the gradual disappearance of the generation of eyewitnesses raises the question of how to keep alive the memory of the events, and the fact that negationism is often offered in the guise of historical 'revisionist scholarship' also means that there is need for the identification of parameters which can be applied to the office of the 'genuine' historian. Legal academics and practitioners as well as political scientists are faced with the difficulty of evaluating methods to deal with denial and must in this regard identify the limits of freedom of speech, but also the need to preserve the rights of victims. Beyond that, the question arises whether the law can ever be an effective option for dealing with revisionist statements and the revisionist movement. In this regard, Holocaust and Genocide Denial: A Contextual Perspective breaks new ground: exploring the background of revisionism, the specific methods devised by individual States to counter this phenomenon, and the rationale for their strategies. Bringing together authors whose expertise relates to the history of the Holocaust, genocide studies, international criminal law and social anthropology, the book offers insights into the history of revisionism and its varying contexts, but also provides a thought-provoking engagement with the challenging questions attached to its treatment in law and politics.

This book examines the mobilization, role, and trajectory of women rescuers and perpetrators during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. While much has been written about the victimization of women during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, very little has been said about women who rescued targeted victims or perpetrated crimes against humanity. This book explores and analyzes the role played by women who exercised agency as rescuers and as perpetrators during the genocide in Rwanda. As women, they took actions and decisions within the context of a deeply entrenched patriarchal system that limited their choices. This work examines two diverging paths of women's agency during this period: to rescue from genocide or to perpetrate genocide. It seeks to answer three questions: First, how were certain Rwandan women mobilized to participate in genocide, and by whom? Second, what were the specific actions of women during this period of violence and upheaval? Finally, what were the trajectories of women rescuers and perpetrators after the genocide? Comparing and contrasting how women rescuers and perpetrators were mobilized, the actions they undertook, and their post-genocide trajectories, and concluding with a broader discussion of the long-term impact of ignoring these women, this book develops a more nuanced and holistic view of women's agency and the genocide in Rwanda. This book will be of much interest to students of gender studies, genocide studies, African politics and critical security studies.

There exists a dominant narrative that essentially defines the US' relationship with genocide through what the US has failed to do to stop or prevent genocide, rather than through how its actions have contributed to the commission of genocide. This narrative acts to conceal the true nature of the US' relationship with many of the governments that have committed genocide since the Holocaust, as well as the US' own actions. In response, this book challenges the dominant narrative through a comprehensive analysis of the US' relationship with genocide. The analysis is situated within the broader genocide studies literature, while emphasizing the role of state responsibility for the commission of genocide and the crime's ancillary acts. The book addresses how a culture of impunity contributes to the resiliency of the dominant narrative in the face of considerable evidence that challenges it. Bachman's narrative presents a far darker relationship between the US and genocide, one that has developed from the start of the Genocide Convention's negotiations and has extended all the way to present day, as can be seen in the relationships the US maintains with potentially genocidal regimes, from Saudi Arabia to Myanmar. This book will be of interest to scholars, postgraduates, and students of genocide studies, US foreign policy, and human rights. A secondary readership may be found in those who study international law and international relations.

Secondary level teachers and professors from various disciplines present their best advice and insights into teaching about various facets of genocide and/or delineate actual lessons they have taught that have been particularly successful with their students.

The International People's Tribunal addressed the many forms of violence during the period of the massacres of 1965-1966 in Indonesia. It was held in The Hague, The Netherlands, in November 2015, to commemorate fifty years since the killings began. The Tribunal, as a people's court, holds no jurisdiction and was an attempt to achieve symbolic justice for the crimes of 1965. This book offers new and previously unpublished insights into the types of crimes committed in the 1965 genocide and how these crimes were prosecuted at the International People's Tribunal for 1965. Divided thematically, each chapter analyses a different crime - enslavement, sexual violence, torture - perpetrated during the Indonesian killings. The contributions consider either general patterns across Indonesia or a particular region of the archipelago. The book reflects on how crimes were charged at the International People's Tribunal for 1965 and focuses on questions relating to the place of people's tribunals in truth-seeking and justice claims, and the prospective for transitional justice in contemporary Indonesia. Positioning the events in Indonesia in 1965 within the broader scope of comparative genocide studies, the book is an original and timely contribution to knowledge about the dynamics of the Indonesian killings. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Asian studies, in particular Southeast Asia, Genocide Studies, Criminology and Criminal Justice and Transitional Justice Studies.

The so-called 'people's power' - the communists - tended to make Poles afraid. At first - afraid of the Anglo-Saxon imperialists, then of the German revisionists, Zionist 5th column and 'Kuron and Michnik walking on the CIA's leash'. The creation of the atmosphere of fear featuring Germans and their alleged 'return' lasted until 1970. In his Fear Management Bruno Kaminski reaches to the origins of this story. Based on a huge selection of sources this analytical study exhibits how in the first 15 postwar years Poles were threatened with the Western world. In the beginning, the Germans were chosen to play the role of the main enemy, dethroned later by the Americans. At the same time, the author proves that fear next to nationalism and ethnic hostility developed into one of the pillars legitimizing the communist system. Marcin Zaremba, Polish Academy of Science, University of Warsaw