encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY editorial board Editor in Chief Dinah L Shelton George Washington University Law School Associate Howard Adelman Editors Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School York University, Canada Frank Chalk Department of History, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies Alexandre Kiss French National Centre for Scientific Research William A Schabas Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Dinah L Shelton [ E D I T O R IN CHIEF] [A–H] Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity Dinah L Shelton © 2005 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation Thomson and Star Logo are trademarks and Gale and Macmillan Reference USA are registered trademarks used herein under license For more information, contact 27500 Drake Rd Farmington Hills, MI 48331-3535 Or you can visit our Internet site at http://www.gale.com For permission to use material from this product, submit your request via Web at http://www.gale-edit.com/permissions, or you may download our Permissions Request form and submit your request by fax or mail to: Permissions Department Thomson Gale 27500 Drake Rd Farmington Hills, MI 48331-3535 Permissions Hotline: 248-699-8006 or 800-877-4253 ext 8006 Fax: 248-699-8074 or 800-762-4058 While every effort has been made to ensure the reliability of the information presented in this publication, Thomson Gale does not guarantee the accuracy of the data contained herein Thomson Gale accepts no payment for listing; and inclusion in the publication of any organization, agency, institution, publication, service, or individual does not imply endorsement of the editors or publisher Errors brought to the attention of the publisher and verified to the satisfaction of the publisher will be corrected in future editions ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web distribution, or information storage retrieval systems—without the written permission of the publisher Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity Dinah L Shelton, editor in chief p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-02-865847-7 (set hardcover : alk paper)— ISBN 0-02-865848-5 (v : alk paper)—ISBN 0-02-865849-3 (v : alk paper)—ISBN 0-02-865850-7 (v : alk paper)— ISBN 0-02-865992-9 (ebook) Genocide—History— Encyclopedias I Shelton, Dinah HV6322.7.E532 2004 304.66303—dc22 2004006587 This title is also available as an ebook ISBN 0-02-865992-9 Contact your Gale sales representative for ordering information Printed in the United States of America 10 contents [VOLUME ONE] Preface [ v i i ] Introduction [ x i ] List of Articles [ x i x ] List of Contributors [ x x v ] Outline of Contents [ x x x i i i ] Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity [ ] A–H [ ] [VOLUME TWO] I–S [ ] [VOLUME THREE] T–Z [ 1 ] Glossary [ 1 ] Filmography [ 1 ] Primary Sources [ ] Index [ ] editorial and production staff Project Justine Ciovacco Editors Shawn Corridor Proofreaders Jane Brennan Shanna Weagle Ann Weller Additional Mark Drouillard Editing Matthew May Indexer Laurie Andriot Kate Millson Wendy Morman Jenai Mynatt Art Director Michelle DiMercurio Compositor Datapage Technologies International (St Peters, Missouri) Imaging Randy Bassett Permissions Margaret A Chamberlain Dean Dauphinais Lezlie Light Robyn Young Shalice Shah-Caldwell Manager, Mary Beth Trimper Composition Cartography XNR Productions (Madison, Wisconsin) Copyeditors Patti Brecht and Peter Rocheleau of BRECHT Nancy Gratton Gina Misiroglu Richard Rothschild Eleanor Stanford Assistant Evi Seoud Manager, Composition Manufacturing Wendy Blurton Editorial Hélène Potter Director Caption Patti Brecht and Peter Rocheleau of BRECHT Writers Publisher Frank Menchaca encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY preface The Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity tackles a difficult and often horrific subject It looks at the worst, but also the best, of human behavior The set is designed to offer the reader information about the barbarous acts that humans have perpetrated against each other throughout history, but also at the many and sometimes heroic efforts that have been made to understand, prevent, combat, and respond to such acts through law, politics, education, the arts, and sciences The Encyclopedia is intended for general readers with a high school or college level education, although many professionals working in humanitarian and human rights organizations will find much here of use and interest to them World War II’s Holocaust brought a new language into the world, including the word genocide In response to the horrors of that event and other crimes committed in Europe and Asia, the international community conducted trials to prosecute and punish crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes These terms garnered better understanding as a result, although war crimes trials had precedents from earlier conflicts After the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, the first half of the twentieth century ended with states adopting an international treaty, the Convention for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which outlawed efforts to destroy a people Subsequent agreements have further identified and defined war crimes and crimes against humanity Genocide and crimes against humanity are not merely historical phenomena It is estimated that more than 250 armed conflicts have occurred since World War II, with casualties numbering upwards of 170 million people Some of these conflicts have been genocidal or involved war crimes and crimes against humanity, such as so-called ethnic cleansing and the use of rape as an instrument of war Indeed, nearly all uses of armed force have involved issues discussed in the Encyclopedia Massive human rights abuses committed by repressive regimes, such as kidnapping and disappearance of political opponents, massacres of minorities and systematic torture also fall within the rubric of crimes against humanity and, sadly, exist in contemporary society Efforts to prevent and respond to genocide and crimes against humanity are evident in the development of international criminal courts, peacekeeping, and humanitarian intervention by the United Nations, and the many educational programs and cinematic representations intended to raise public awareness of the problem In addition, [vii] Preface those countries throughout the world that are recovering from internal conflict or repression face the tasks of understanding the past, making appropriate redress to survivors or victims of abuse, and ensuring the accountability of those responsible for the commission of violent acts The topic is thus of vital importance and requires the involvement of a wide array of intellectual disciplines, professions, and skills Historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists explain its global and temporal dimensions, identifying the past events that often led to current conflicts Psychologists, philosophers, and theologians attempt to grapple with the reasons why human beings commit atrocities and seek to understand the responsive behavior of others, from collaboration through silence to active opposition Lawyers and political scientists seek to construct institutions and legal structures that can impact human behavior, deterring genocide and crimes against humanity by designing effective and appropriate laws and punishment Those in the arts educate and raise public awareness through film, music, painting, and writing All of these disciplines appear in the Encyclopedia There are more than 350 entries in the Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, arranged in alphabetical order for easy reference In addition, an outline of contents at the beginning of volume one groups the entries thematically The entries range in length from five hundred to five thousand words and concern historical and contemporary examples of genocide and crimes against humanity, individuals, groups, international institutions and law, theories and philosophy, prevention, prosecution, and cultural representations The set covers the ancient world to the present day and looks at all regions of the world The editorial board affirmatively decided to include any event that has been publicly and reasonably debated as falling within the subject matter broadly viewed Groups that have been the target of genocide or crimes against humanity are separately discussed, as are the known perpetrators The various forms of reparation and redress available to victims and survivors are included, as are the courts and tribunals where the accused may be tried for their alleged offenses Some entries describe the means used to incite public opinion toward hatred and genocidal acts, such as through advertising, radio broadcasts, and film Short entries provide biographical information about key historical and contemporary figures, from Genghis Kahn to Simon Wiesenthal, while others describe important places such as Auschwitz and Srebrenica Discussions of national and international policies during periods of genocide and crimes against humanity aim to provide readers with a wider perspective on the events reported The entries were written by experts, authorities in their respective fields Like the topics they address, the authors come from countries throughout the world As much as possible, the authors have used language that should be easily accessible to the public at large The authors and editors have also attempted to be responsive to the sensitive nature of the topic, avoiding terms that may be offensive and noting where respected opinion is divided on the events or persons they describe The result is a set of entries reflecting solid scholarship A glossary of terms with which the reader might be unfamiliar appears at the end of the third volume, and each entry contains a bibliography to guide readers to further sources of information Cross-references at the end of each entry refer to related topics The Encyclopedia contains historical images and contemporary photographs to illustrate the entries Particularly for this topic, it is often difficult to visualize the reality of the events described The editors have chosen the images carefully, not to shock but to provide further information and representation of the events and persons included At the end of the set, further material is included to assist the reader In addition to the glossary, the concluding matter includes a filmography, primary source docu[viii] encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Preface ments, and a comprehensive subject index The primary documents may be of particular interest to those undertaking research in this field The documents consist of key legal instruments, such as the Convention for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as well as several important judicial decisions The editorial board and contributors have all benefited from the editorial assistance given by individuals at Macmillan Reference USA, in particular Hélène Potter, Justine Ciovacco, and Shawn Corridor Their dedication to the project and infinite capacity for work inspired everyone We express our thanks to them and to the others who contributed by suggesting authors, entries, and materials for the set Dinah L Shelton encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY [ix] Humanitarian Intervention non-NATO states as well, was not condemned by the General Assembly, and was legally justified by several governments with reference to the doctrine of humanitarian intervention At the same time many states (including Russia and China) opposed and condemned as unlawful the use of force against the FRY, whereas other states that supported the intervention (such as the United States) asserted that its legality turned on a variety of factors, including prior Security Council resolutions identifying the FRY’s actions as a threat to the peace Criteria for Conducting Humanitarian Intervention Various scholars have sought to delineate criteria that should govern the resort to humanitarian intervention In the wake of the Kosovo incident one highlyrespected group of experts—convened as the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS)—advanced in a 2001 report several criteria falling into four general categories First, the commission stated that there must be a just cause for the intervention, which can arise when there is serious and irreparable harm occurring (or likely to occur) to human beings Specifically, the commission identified such harm as the “large scale loss of life, actual or apprehended, with genocidal intent or not, which is the product either of deliberate state action, or state neglect or inability to act, or a failed state situation.” Such harm might also consist of “large scale ‘ethnic cleansing’, actual or apprehended, whether carried out by killing, forced expulsion, acts of terror or rape” (ICISS, 2001, p 32) Second, the commission advocated four precautionary principles as a means of ensuring that the intervention is undertaken properly The primary purpose of the intervention must be to halt human suffering All nonmilitary options for resolution of the crisis must first be explored The scale, duration, and intensity of the intervention should be dictated by what is necessary to achieve the humanitarian objective Finally, there must be a reasonable chance of success in halting the suffering, such that the consequences of action are not likely worse than those of inaction (ICISS, 2001, pp 35–37) Third, the commission urged that before embarking on such intervention, states must formally seek Security Council authorization If Security Council authorization is not forthcoming, states should seek authorization from the General Assembly, regional, or subregional organizations In the absence of such authority the commission did not declare humanitarian intervention to be unlawful, but noted that “in con[468] science-shocking situations crying out for action, it is unrealistic to expect that concerned states will rule out other means and forms of action to meet the gravity and urgency of these situations” (ICISS, 2001, p 55) Finally, the commission proposed certain criteria to guide the military operation itself The intervening military must have a clear and unambiguous mandate and the resources to support that mandate When the intervention is conducted by several states, there must be a unified command, with clear channels of communication and chain of command The intervening military must accept that there are limitations on the force to be used, since the objective is to protect the population of the state, not to completely defeat the state (at the same time the use of force cannot be limited to the protection of the intervening forces themselves) The intervening military must abide by precise rules of engagement that match its humanitarian objective, adhere to international humanitarian law, and coordinate their actions as much as possible with humanitarian organizations Criteria of this type provide useful guidance in the event that a state is considering a humanitarian intervention, but until such criteria are incorporated in a binding document and accepted by a wide variety of states, the legality of humanitarian intervention (at least in the absence of Security Council authorization) and the manner in which it is to be conducted will remain controversial SEE ALSO International Law; Prevention; United Nations BIBLIOGRAPHY Abiew, F K (1999) The Evolution of the Doctrine and Practice of Humanitarian Intervention The Hague: Kluwer Chesterman, S (2001) Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law New York: Oxford University Press Garrett, S A (1999) Doing Good and Doing Well: An Examination of Humanitarian Intervention Westport, Conn.: Praeger Holzgrefe, J L., and R O Keohane, eds (2003) Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) (2001) The Responsibility to Protect Ottawa: International Development Research Centre Murphy, S D (1996) Humanitarian Intervention: The United Nations in an Evolving World Order Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Tesón, F R (1997) Humanitarian Intervention: An Inquiry into Law and Morality, 2nd edition Irvington-onHudson, N.Y.: Transnational encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Humanitarian Law Wheeler, N J (2000) Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press Sean D Murphy Humanitarian Law International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is the jus in bello, or the law that regulates the conduct of armed conflicts The International Committee of the Red Cross describes IHL as “the body of rules which, in wartime, protects people who are not or are no longer participating in the hostilities Its central purpose is to limit and prevent human suffering in times of armed conflict The rules are to be observed not only by governments and their armed forces, but also by armed opposition groups and any other parties to a conflict.” Serious violations of this law are called war crimes Since World War II, the term IHL has also been used by scholars to include crimes against humanity insofar as that category of crimes has emerged from war crimes, even though it is now unrelated to war crimes and is applicable in times of war and peace; and genocide, insofar as that crime was originally a broader extension of crimes against humanity, which applies in times of war and peace IHL does not include the jus ad bellum, meaning the law applicable to the right or legitimacy to resort to war Thus, “crimes against peace,” as referred to in the International Military Tribunal Charter and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East Statute, and since the United Nations Charter’s adoption known as aggression, are not part of IHL Framework IHL’s genesis dates back more than five thousand years to various civilizations that evolved humanitarian principles underlying the regulation of armed conflicts In time, these humanitarian principles formed an interwoven fabric of norms and rules designed to prevent certain forms of harm from befalling civilian noncombatants and some categories of combatants such as the sick, wounded, shipwrecked, and prisoners, as well as persons covered by the Red Cross/Red Crescent emblems and those who provide medical and humanitarian assistance during armed conflicts Eventually, the more serious breaches of these rules were criminalized IHL’s normative development has never been part of a consistent or cohesive international legal policy Instead, the law developed as a haphazard mixture of conventions, customs, general principles, and the writings of scholars At first, the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907 codified some of the customary princi- ples and norms on which the state parties could agree The Four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, became a more comprehensive codification, later to be supplemented by two protocols in 1977 Throughout history the tensions between humanitarian goals and military/political ones have been evident Proponents of the former seek to expand the protections of persons and nonmilitary targets, to limit the use of force in general, and to restrict the use of certain weapons in particular They have encountered resistance and opposition from those who press the concept of “military necessity” and seek to achieve victory through the fastest means and with the least costs, irrespective of the harm inflicted on the enemy Humanitarian arguments alone have seldom been sufficient to induce states to limit the use of their might against their enemies, particularly against weaker ones who are incapable of inflicting reciprocal harm Pragmatic and policy arguments, however, have greatly aided the development of IHL Mutuality of interest and other considerations, such as economic costs and effectiveness, have combined with humanitarian ones to produce the existing body of norms and rules of conduct governing armed conflicts The Law of Armed Conflict Through the Ages A historical review of the regulation of armed conflicts reveals that civilizations for more than five millennia have either prohibited or condemned unnecessary use of force against certain categories of persons and against certain targets This historical process reveals the convergence and commonality of basic human values in diverse civilizations, in light of the fact that geographically separated groups have reached the same humanistic conclusions without, in some cases, any evidence of the migration of such ideas from one civilization to another This convergence is embodied in the Preamble of the 1907 Hague Convention which indicates that such commonly shared values make up the “dictates of humanity” leading to the concept of “crimes against humanity.” The Chinese scholar Sun Tzu, in the fifth century asserted that in war it is important to “treat captives well, and care for them.” He also wrote that a general should only attack the enemy’s armies, “for the worst policy is to attack cities.” The Chinese code of chivalry reveals that it is not the purpose of war to inflict unnecessary or excessive suffering on the enemy, nor is it useful It was not until the late 1800s that Western civilization accepted the principle of prohibiting unnecessary human pain and suffering during wartime This principle first appeared in the 1874 Brussels Declaration (Brussels Conference on the Laws and CusBCE, encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY [469] Humanitarian Law Geneva headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross The organization played a pivotal role in developing the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, for victims of war, still the core of modern international humanitarian law [ V E R N I E R J E A N BERNARD/CORBIS SYGMA] toms of War) and was then included in the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions’ Annexed Regulations It is a basic principle of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and is considered to be part of customary international law Like some other principles of IHL, namely, proportionality and discrimination, it is relative and subject in application to good judgment and good faith Parallel to the developments in China, and without evidence of the migration of Chinese ideas, the Indian civilization evidenced in the fourth century BCE the same values and policies One of India’s epic poems, Ramayana, reveals that it was expressly forbidden to use a mythical weapon that could obliterate an entire enemy nation because “such destruction en masse was forbidden by the ancient laws of war, even though [the enemy] was fighting an unjust war with an unrighteous objective.” Another famous Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, which may date from as early as 200 BCE, similarly prohibits the use of hyperdestructive weapons In the story, the mythical weapon called the pasupathastra was forbidden because its use was not conventional and Hindu teachings held that unconventional weapons were not moral [470] Even though these tales are from mythological literature, they reflect social values In the fourth century BCE, the Book of Manu developed norms based on these values The Laws of Manu, as they were sometimes called, stated that “when a king fights his foes in battle, let him not strike with weapons concealed, nor with barbed, poisoned, or the points of which are blazed with fire [because] these are the weapons of the wicked.” The laws also prohibited weapons that caused unnecessary or excessive suffering These included arrows with heated, poisoned, or hooked spikes and tips In ancient Greece, awareness existed that certain acts were contrary to traditional usages and principles spontaneously enforced by human conscience, thus establishing the applicability of customary law to armed conflicts Herodotus recounts that as early as the fifth century BCE certain conduct was prohibited in Athens as “a transgression of the laws of men, and of the law of the human race generally, and not merely as a law applicable exclusively to the barbarians.” In Homer’s epic The Odyssey, the use of poisoned weapons was considered to be a grave violation to the way of the encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Humanitarian Law gods Once again, history records the recognition by a civilization that the “human race” has its laws Roman law evidenced these same values, probably inspired by the ancient Greeks The Roman armies were more disciplined than those of any other ancient nation They did not as a rule degenerate into indiscriminate slaughter and unrestrained devastation They observed restrictions that others did not This was the beginning of the notion of professionalism in armies that ripened in the nineteenth century to form a foundation for the modern law of armed conflict Such self-imposed restrictions were not universally respected Ancient Greeks and Romans both applied the law of war only to civilized sovereign states, properly organized, and enjoying a regular constitution Hence, barbarians and savage tribes were debarred from the benefits of these rules The assumption was that such uncivilized combatants would not abide by the same rules This assumption is reflected in the nineteenth-century law of armed conflict, namely, in the concept of mutuality of obligations Roman law also developed the terms jus ad bellum (the law governing the right to use armed force) and jus in bello (the law governing the conduct of hostilities), terms that continue to be used in contemporary international law The Roman jus belli, or the law of war, served as a foundation for legal developments until the late 1800s The three monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam join in the affirmation of humanitarian principles The second Book of Kings states: the King of Israel said to Eli’sha, “My Father shall I slay them?” He answered, “You shall not slay them Would you slay those whom you have taken captive with your sword and bow? Set bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master.” Another relevant text of the Old Testament is found in Deuteronomy, in which specific regulations for the conduct of sieges are spelled out: When thou shalt besiege a city a long time in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by wielding an axe against them; for thou mayest eat of them, but thou shalt not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged of thee? Only the trees of which thou knowest that they are not trees for food, them thou mayest destroy and cut down, that thou mayest build bulwarks against the city that makes war with thee, until it fall Traditional Jewish law in the Talmud also regulated the destruction of vegetation: Josephus elaborates that this included not setting fire to their land or destroying beasts of labor Maimonides flatly states that the destruction of fruit trees for the mere purpose of afflicting the civilian population is prohibited and, finally, we have the broad interpretation of Rabbi Ishmael that “not only are fruit trees but, by argument, from minor to major, stores of fruit itself may not be destroyed.” Jews honor the Sabbath and other holy days like Yom Kippur, when no warlike activities can be conducted; the same is true in Islam on the days of the Eid In Medieval times, the Roman Catholic Church also specifically proscribed the conduct of war on particular days The Archbishop of Arles proclaimed in 1035 that there was to be a “truce of God” from “vespers on Wednesday to sunrise on Monday.” The Islamic civilization had specific rules on the legitimacy of war and its conduct, based on the Koran and the Sunna, the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, which are the two principal sources of the Shari’a, Islamic law The Prophet Muhammad himself entered into a peace treaty with the Meccans, the treaty of Hudaibiya that provided for the protection of civilians Early Islamic values relating to warfare included the reduction of unnecessary or excessive suffering The Koran enjoins on the victor the duty to feed captives Also, Islamic legal treatises on the law of nations from the ninth century forbade the killing of women, children, elderly, blind, crippled, and the insane Since the Middle Ages, it has been primarily Western civilization that advanced the common values and shaped the principles, norms, and rules of conduct of what are now parts of IHL The writings of Aristotle, Cicero, St Augustine, and St Thomas Aquinas set forth the philosophical premises for the conditions of legitimacy of war, the jus ad bellum, so as to distinguish between just and unjust war; but Western civilization also developed principles, norms, and rules of conduct limiting the means and harmful consequences of the conduct of war St Thomas Aquinas refers to these basic laws of humanity in the treatment of civilian noncombatants, the sick, wounded, and prisoners of war as follows, “these rules belong to the jus gentium which are deduced from natural law as conclusion principles.” He called it “positive human law,” not because it was codified, but because citizens of civilized nations had agreed to it As the laws of chivalry developed in medieval Western Europe, so did rules limiting the means and manner of conducting war Heraldic courts developed a code of chivalry, enforced by the Christian princes encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY [471] Humanitarian Law Flags of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement fly at the societies’ official museum, Geneva, Switzerland The conventions on the protection of victims and conduct of war authored by their parent organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross, following World War II remain the core of international humanitarian law.[ B A R N A B A S B O S S H A R T / C O R B I S ] that regulated a knight’s conduct in battle The codes of chivalry prohibited the use of certain weapons, such as the cross-bow, whose use was forbidden by the Second Lateran Council of 1139 National laws and military regulations followed the evolution of the law of armed conflict Among early national regulations are those that Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden promulgated in 1621 in the Articles of Military Laws to be Observed in the Wars They provided in the general article that “no Colonel or Captain shall command his soldiers to any unlawful thing; which who so does, shall be punished according to the discretion of the judge.” This was probably the first time that the rule of command responsibility was posited in a normative prescription In the modern law of armed conflict it is a well-established principle In the United States, the first Articles of War, promulgated in 1775, contained explicit provisions for the punishment of officers who failed to keep good order among the troops It also included a number of prescriptions for the protection of civilians, prisoners of [472] war, and the sick and injured in the field This provision was retained and strengthened in the Articles of War of 1806 and served as the basis for prosecutions arising out of the Civil War for conduct against the law of nations The most noteworthy national regulations are the United States Lieber Code of 1863, the 1880 Oxford Manual, the German General Staff Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege of 1902, and Great Britain’s War Office Manual of Military Law of 1929 These are only some examples of national military regulations that preceded the “Law of Geneva.” Today most countries of the world have military or other legislation that includes either in whole or in part the norms of the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 and the two Additional Protocols of 1977 These conventions require the introduction of such norms in the national laws of the contracting parties, their dissemination, and training of military personnel to ensure compliance and to avoid claims of ignorance of the law encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Humanitarian Law Sources of Law and Legal Regimes Assuming the broader meaning of IHL as encompassing all violations of the law of armed conflict, crimes against humanity, and genocide, it is necessary to distinguish between various legal regimes that pertain to the three subjects They have not been brought together into a single legal regime, even though they all share the same goals and purposes of minimizing human harm and material damage The first legal regime is the customary international law applicable to the conduct of war, binding on all states Its historical evolution described earlier ripened into the 1899 Hague Convention, which codified what the state parties considered the customary practices of states That convention was amended in the 1907 Hague Convention No IV on land warfare and its annexed regulations Because the 1907 Convention and annexed regulations contained several broad principles that withstood the test of time, they are considered the foundation of customary international law applicable to armed conflicts The four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, which as of July 1, 2004, have been ratified by 192 states, are also deemed to reflect customary international law, as are parts of Protocol I (1977), which deals with conflicts of an international character (ratified by 161 states), and Protocol II (ratified by 156 states) relating to internal conflicts or civil wars State parties and nonstate parties differ as to which provisions of these two protocols embody customary international law Although it is thus clear that there is an overlap between the customary and conventional international law of armed conflict, there is a distinction between these two legal regimes that is confusing to nonexperts, particularly to those in the armed forces who have to apply these norms in the course of armed conflicts The Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions are often referred to as separate bodies of law because the main topic of regulation for each group differs to some extent The Hague Conventions focus primarily on prohibited means of warfare, whereas the Geneva Conventions address the various categories of protected persons (civilians, sick, wounded, and prisoners of war) There is nonetheless considerable overlap in the so-called Law of the Hague and the Law of Geneva The regulation of armed conflict under customary or conventional international law is also divided on the basis of distinguishing conflicts of an international character from conflicts of a non-international character The 1907 Hague Convention and its annexed regulations apply only to conflicts of an international character, that is conflicts between states The Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 also generally apply to international conflicts, but they also establish a special regime for conflicts of a noninternational character The latter are regulated by Article 3, which is identical in all four Geneva Conventions, and by Protocol II (1977), which deals exclusively with conflicts of a noninternational character Common Article of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 is also deemed part of customary international law, as are some parts of Additional Protocol II (1977) In addition, there are purely domestic conflicts that some experts argue should be included under Common Article and Protocol II Minor domestic or internal conflicts that not rise to the threshold level of violence to be regulated by Common Article or Protocol II are subject to another legal regime that is discussed later The existence of three sublegal regimes applicable to conflicts of an international and noninternational character and minor domestic or internal conflicts is incongruous insofar as the goals and purposes of all three regimes are the same, namely, the protection of certain persons and targets in times of violent conflict Scholars have argued that there is no valid conceptual basis to distinguish between the same protections offered to the same persons and targets, depending on whether the conflict is legally defined as being of an international or a noninternational character or purely domestic or internal The distinction, however, exists because it reflects the interests of governments who not wish to give insurgents and combatants engaged in domestic conflicts with their government a legal status likely to give these groups political legitimacy Governments usually argue that the resort to violence by domestic insurgent groups is in the nature of terrorism and thus deny them not only legitimacy, but the fundamental safeguards and protections contained in the regulation of armed conflict Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, “grave breaches” include, inter alia, murder, torture, rape, mistreatment of prisoners of war and civilians, wanton and willful destruction of public and private property, destruction of cultural and religious monuments and objects, use of civilian and prison-of-war human shields, collective punishment of civilians and prisoners of war Common Article does not contain the same specificity, although scholars argue that the prohibitions are the same Common Article refers to transgressions of its prohibitions as “violations” and not as “grave breaches.” The 1949 Geneva Conventions and Protocol I (1977) establish certain consequences for “grave breaches,” which include the duty for states to criminalize these violations in their domestic laws, to prose- encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY [473] Humanitarian Law cute or extradite those who commit such violations, and to provide other states with judicial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of such “grave breaches.” The Conventions also establish a basis for universal jurisdiction so that all state parties to the Geneva Conventions can prosecute such offenders, and removes statutes of limitation for such offenses Common Article of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Protocol II (1977) not contain the same explicit legal obligations Scholars argue that the obligations to prevent and suppress “violations” of Common Article and Protocol II (1977) should be treated in the same manner and with the same legal consequences as the “grave breaches” of the 1949 Conventions and Protocol I (1977); that is, as war crimes Contemporary doctrinal developments complement customary and conventional international law In other words, the writings of scholars become the bridge between the different legal regimes of customary and conventional international law, the “Law of the Hague” and the “Law of Geneva” and between the subregimes of conflicts of an international character and conflicts of a noninternational character This proposition is also bolstered by the fact that both conventional and customary international law are predicated on certain general principles enunciated in both the “Law of the Hague” and the “Law of Geneva,” such as the principles of prohibiting the infliction of unnecessary human pain and suffering, proportionality, and discrimination in the use of force Prohibitions and restrictions on the use of certain weapons are deemed part of the customary law of armed conflict, but control of weaponry usually arises out of specific international conventions Nonetheless, overarching principles contained in both customary and conventional international law prohibit the infliction of unnecessary human pain and suffering and require proportionality in the use of force The first efforts to proscribe weapons that cause unnecessary pain and suffering developed in 1868 in the St Petersburg Declaration, which prohibits the use of explosive projectiles The subsequent Brussels International Declaration Concerning the Laws and Customs of War (1874) states, “the only legitimate object which states should have in view during war is to weaken the enemy without inflicting upon him unnecessary suffering.” Based on this principle, a 1925 protocol was adopted for the Prohibition of the Use of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or Other Gases A protocol prohibiting bacteriological methods of warfare followed, and later treaties addressed other weapons, culminating in the AntiPersonnel Mine Convention of 1997 In 1980 a major effort was undertaken in the Convention on Prohibi[474] tions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects Four additional protocols have been adopted to ban or restrict Non-Detectable Fragments; the Use of Mines, BoobyTraps, and Other Devices; the Use of Incendiary Weapons; and Blinding Laser Weapons The treaties clearly indicate continuity in the evolution of the basic principles mentioned earlier, and the efforts of the international community from 1868 to date in its pursuit of the humanization of armed conflicts Governments argue that each and every one of the 73 conventions prohibiting or restricting the use of certain weapons is binding only on the states parties to the particular treaty Yet, both customary international law and general principles of law also apply and are binding upon nonstate parties to these conventions Weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, which inflict unnecessary pain and suffering, also violate the principle of discrimination because these weapons cannot distinguish between combatants and noncombatants The prohibition of chemical and biological weapons in the 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (which carries criminal consequences), reflect customary law principles, as does the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxic Weapons and on Their Destruction Notwithstanding the efforts of a majority of the state parties, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention has not been amended to parallel the same level of prohibition and criminalization achieved by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, because of the opposition of the United States government, which views such a regime as placing undo burdens on the American chemical and pharmaceutical industries For similar but different political/military considerations, nuclear weapons have not so far been banned, even though they clearly, if used, violate the principle of discrimination between combatants and protected persons, and inflict unnecessary human pain and suffering on civilian populations They also cause damage to the present and future environment and indiscriminately have an impact on future health Thus, politics, more than rationality and humanitarian considerations, frequently impedes the development of international law An example illustrating the tension between international humanitarian law and the political/military interests of certain governments is the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Humanitarian Law and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction The states parties take the position that the prohibition of landmines that cannot be detonated or removed after the end of a conflict is necessary because they have proven to cause unnecessary human pain and suffering to innocent civilians long after the end of a conflict Other governments, such as that of the United States, continue to claim that the use of landmines even without the ability to detonate or remove them after the end of a conflict is permissible Clearly, the use of landmines violates the principle of discrimination between combatants and noncombatants, but proponents of their continued availability as a weapon argue that the principle of military necessity justifies the use of landmines without restrictions Although military necessity may permit the use of mines in times of armed conflict, it is not a justification for not having mines that can be detonated after the end of the conflict, nor is it a justification for failing to require the state that placed these mines to remove them after the conflict’s end religious group,” which excludes social and political groups, whereas crimes against humanity protects any group of persons against whom a state policy of persecution is directed and does not require a specific intent to eliminate the group in whole or in part The Expanded Meaning of Humanitarian Law The expanded contemporary meaning of IHL includes crimes against humanity and genocide There are two reasons for this inclusion, even though both of these crimes apply in peacetime as well as during war, in contrast to the law of armed conflict Crimes against humanity originated in the work of the 1919 Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of War and War Crimes, which was established after World War I by the preliminary Peace Conference in Paris In that original conception, the notion of what was then called crimes against the laws of humanity was an extension of “war crimes” as defined in the 1907 Hague Convention and annexed regulations The 1945 International Military Tribunal Charter, relying upon the 1919 Commission’s concept, defined “crimes against humanity” as an international crime in Article 6(c) The Far East Tribunal followed suit in 1946 In both of these instruments, the connection to “war crimes” was necessary Subsequently, that connection was removed, first by a 1950 report of the International Law Commission and then in the statutes of the ad hoc Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court The statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia preserves a connection between “crimes against humanity” and an armed conflict Since the two legal regimes have different political constituencies, it is frequently argued by governments and military establishments that IHL should be kept separate and apart from HRL Although that argument is methodologically appealing, it ignores the fact that HRL also applies in times of war, save for the human rights that may be suspended temporarily during wartime If the aim is to protect persons and certain objects or property, then it makes little legal sense to have two superimposed and separate legal regimes whose ultimate goals and purposes, as well as specific protections are the same A good example is the rights of victims to reparations and other forms of redress, which should not be distinguished on the basis of whether the violation occurs under IHL or HRL In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which was intended to encompass “crimes against humanity.” But the latter concept is broader and includes conduct not covered by the Genocide Convention Genocide requires a specific intent to “eliminate in whole or in part” a “national, ethnic, or Since the end of World War II, and with the establishment of the United Nations, a parallel development has taken place in the legal regime of international human rights law (HRL) Like IHL, HRL springs from the same commonly shared human values Its norms and standards, however, apply in times of peace, but many of them also apply in times of war For example, the right to life and the protection of physical integrity are protected under both IHL and HRL Similarly, the protection of public and private property, cultural monuments and objects, and cultural heritage are equally protected under IHL and HRL Other human rights may be curtailed in times of war or other national emergency Thus there is an imperfect overlap between IHL and HRL The inclusion within the meaning of IHL of violations of the law of armed conflict (whether they be called “war crimes” or “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions or “violations” of Common Article of the Geneva Conventions and Protocol II), crimes against humanity, and genocide is conceptually justified from a humanistic perspective, namely, that of the protection of persons from certain depredations For the same reason, HRL should also be integrated in a single legal regime Suffice it to recall that torture is prohibited under HRL by the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment, which criminalizes acts of torture It is also prohibited under IHL by both conventional and customary international law, and is a “grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions, as well as a war crime Other protections of life and physical integrity contained in IHL and HRL also evidence this encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY [475] Human Rights conclusion Since the goals and purposes of IHL and HRL are the protection of persons, it should make no difference whether the context is one of war or peace, or whether it is that of a conflict of an international or noninternational character, or a minor internal conflict The International Court of Justice, in an advisory opinion rendered in July 2004, held as follows: “the Court considers that the protection offered by human rights conventions does not cease in case of armed conflicts as regards the relationship between international humanitarian law and human rights law, some rights may be exclusively matters of international humanitarian law; others may be exclusively matters of human rights law; yet others may be matters of both these branches of international law.” The International Court of Justice concluded that human rights law is the general applicable law and that international humanitarian law is the lex specialis SEE ALSO Crimes Against Humanity; Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Victims of War; Genocide; Hague Conventions of 1907; Human Rights BIBLIOGRAPHY Bassiouni, M Cherif, ed (1997) International Criminal Law Conventions and Their Penal Provisions Irvington-onHudson, N.Y.: Transnational Publishers Bassiouni, M Cherif, ed (1999) “The Normative Framework of International Humanitarian Law: Overlaps, Gaps, and Ambiguities.” In International Criminal Law, 2nd revised edition Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational Publishers Bassiouni, M Cherif, ed (2000) A Manual on International Humanitarian Law and Arms Control Agreements Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational Publishers Bassiouni, M Cherif (2003) Introduction to International Criminal Law Ardsley, NY : Transnational Publishers Best, Geoffrey (1980) Humanity in Warfare New York: Columbia University Press Fleck, Dieter, ed (1995) The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts New York: Oxford University Press Green, Leslie (2000) The Contemporary Law of Armed Conflict, 2nd edition Yonkers, NY: Juris Howard, M., G Andreopoulos, and M Shulman (1994) The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press Kalshoven, Frits (1987) Constraints on the Waging of War Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross Keen, Maurice H (1965) The Laws of War in the Middle Ages Toronto: University of Toronto Press Levie, Howard S (1986) The Code of International Armed Conflict New York : Oceana Publications [476] Meron, Theodor (1989) Human Rights and Humanitarian Norms as Customary Law New York: Oxford University Press Meron, Theodor, ed (1984) Human Rights in International Law: Legal and Policy Issues Oxford: Clarendon Press Schindler, Dietrich, and Jirí Toman (2004) The Laws of Armed Conflicts: A Collection of Conventions, Resolutions, and Other Documents, 4th revised edition Leiden, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff M Cherif Bassiouni Human Rights Human rights can mean different things to different people, but perhaps the best way of defining human rights is to refer to the body of international human rights law that has come into being over the past five decades Today, there are literally thousands of ratifications to dozens of human rights treaties—coming out of every region of the world Solemn declarations by political leaders and others reinforce this international legal regime, and there are numerous institutions that have been created to oversee its implementation The most broadly based treaties are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights— each of which has been ratified by approximately 150 countries Regional human rights systems exist in Europe, Africa, and the Americas Other more specialized treaties deal with human rights violations that center on racial discrimination, women, children, migrant workers, torture, minorities, and labor rights The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1948, a day before its seminal adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Genocide Convention might be thought of as the first contemporary “human rights” convention, although earlier international treaties addressed concerns such as the slave trade, trafficking in women, and workers’ rights Genocide is a particular form of mass killing, and it may be the ultimate human rights violation, since it is directed not only against individuals but against the communities to which those individuals belong In addition, the Genocide Convention codified genocide as an international crime, and placed international legal obligations on states to prevent and punish that crime This dual character—as human rights violation and international crime—renders genocide almost unique; only the international treatment of the crime of torture, which came about much later, is similar encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Human Rights The Human Rights Content of the Genocide Convention The Genocide Convention deals only with the most serious kinds of human rights violations, although its adoption in 1948 was a landmark in the evolution of protection for human rights Today, however, conduct outlawed by the Genocide Convention is also effectively prohibited under later treaties, which not contain the unique requirement of intent that characterizes the crime of genocide in the Genocide Convention Thus, genocide would be prohibited today under international human rights law, even if the Genocide Convention did not exist The parallels between human rights as articulated in the Genocide Convention and more contemporary definitions of human rights are clear As defined in Article of the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide takes in: • “killing,” which would be defined in human rights language as violation of the right to life • “causing serious bodily or mental harm,” which violates security of person and is also likely to constitute torture or inhuman or degrading treatment • “inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction,” which also constitutes arbitrary deprivation of life • “preventing births within the group,” which interferes with the rights to privacy and family • “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group,” which violates the rights to privacy and family, as well as the rights of the child The failure of the USSR to sponsor or support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the decades following 1948 played a role in delegitimizing the communist regime and even contributed to its demise Here, a man with a sledgehammer whacks at the Berlin wall (whose dismantling became a symbol of the cold war’s end) [ R E U T E R S N E W M E D I A I N C / C O R B I S ] The right to life is obviously fundamental to all other human rights At the same time, however, it is not an absolute concept, and it is only the “arbitrary” deprivation of life that is prohibited in the convention For example, it is possible to imagine circumstances in which a state’s killing of a person would be both morally and legally permissible, and some human rights treaties carefully codify such exceptions Under Article of the European Convention on Human Rights, for example, a government may execute a duly convicted prisoner (although a later amendment to this convention abolishes capital punishment) In addition, deadly force may be used if it is “absolutely necessary” to protect a person from unlawful violence, to effect a lawful arrest or prevent the escape of a lawfully held prisoner, or to quell a riot Other treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Civil and Political Covenant), simply prohibit arbitrary killing, implying that there are some circumstances in which the use of deadly force may not be arbitrary and therefore may be justifiable There are many difficult concepts that lie at the edges of international formulations of the right to life: Does the right to life imply interventionist duties on the part of the state? Does the right to life affect the issues of abortion or suicide? Is capital punishment always prohibited? Under what specific conditions is the use of deadly force by law enforcement officials permissible? The provision (pertaining to the right to life) in the Genocide Convention, on the other hand, is relatively clear: Killing members of a group identified in the convention is prohibited Because genocide, as formulated in the convention, also requires an “intent to destroy,” genocidal killings are by definition committed deliberately, and attempts to destroy a group and its members cannot be justified under any of the exemptions from the crime of genocide enunciated in other treaties Indeed, Article 6.3 of the Civil and Political Covenant specifically provides that the covenant cannot be interpreted as taking away from or lessening in any way the encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY [477] Human Rights A journalist/filmmaker has been allowed to set up inside Abu Ghraib and to film some of its operations on May 10, 2004—approximately two weeks after the infamous photographs of the U.S abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners had first come to light and provoked an international outcry A May 2004 report of the International Red Cross cited estimates by U.S Army intelligence officers that 70 to 90 percent of the prison’s earlier inmates had been innocent civilians [ A P / W I D E W O R L D P H O T O S ] obligations that states have assumed under the Genocide Convention Imposing “conditions of life” calculated to destroy a group also constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of life, even if that imposition is accomplished in an indirect manner Deliberately starving a population or infecting it with a fatal disease violates international human rights norms; when these deeds are carried out for the purpose of destroying a group protected under the Genocide Convention, in whole or in part, they also constitute genocide “Security of person” protects individuals from treatment that might seriously injure them but not cause death Such treatment is prohibited, whether it occurs while a person is in custody or under any other circumstances Accordingly, all persons held in prisons or other detention facilities should be treated with respect, whether they have been convicted of a crime or only accused of one [478] Domestic law (in many nations) usually prohibits the physical ill-treatment of any persons by government officials, and violation of this prohibition may result in compensation being paid to the victim or to dismissal of criminal charges The international standard is not as all-encompassing, however, and the usual formulation prohibits only those acts that constitute “torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” There have been many attempts to shed light on these phrases in court cases, but there is no doubt that the “serious bodily or mental harm” that is prohibited under the Genocide Convention would be included within this broader international prohibition against ill-treatment “Rights to family and privacy” are also part of international human rights law, even though they may not be specifically protected under all domestic legal systems The Civil and Political Covenant refers to the family as “the natural and fundamental group unit of encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Human Rights society” and recognizes the right to marry and to found a family Similar provisions may be found in the African, American, and European human rights conventions The right to found or raise a family obviously includes the right to have children, and attempting to prevent births against the wishes of the parents would clearly violate international human rights norms The right to privacy is specifically articulated in many human rights treaties It has a public sphere, wherein one’s honor and reputation should be protected from the libelous or slanderous statements or actions of others, and a private sphere, which would entail noninterference by government in such matters as lifestyle and the decision to have children As is the case with other human rights, however, the right to privacy may be restricted to accommodate other legitimate concerns of citizenries; only “arbitrary or unlawful” interference with privacy is prohibited under the Civil and Political Covenant The regional human rights treaties are more specific, permitting the placement of restrictions on the right to privacy when those restrictions are necessary to protect, for example, national security, public safety, public health, public morals, or the rights and freedoms of others It is inconceivable that attempts to prevent births within a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group (as prohibited by the Genocide Convention) would fall within one of these permitted restrictions The “rights of the child” are referred to in general terms in all of the major human rights treaties More important, they are now guaranteed by the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (Child Convention), which as of 2003 had been ratified by every country in the world except Somalia and the United States The basic principles underlying this convention are: (1) the best interests of a child should guide any governmental action that affects that child; and (2) a child’s rights and responsibilities should evolve as the child’s own capacities evolve with age and maturity Under Article of the Child Convention, it is possible for a child to be separated from his or her parents against the parents’ will, but only “ when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child Such determination may be necessary in a particular case, such as one involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are living separately and a decision must be made as to the child’s place of residence.” Nothing in this formulation would justify transferring a child from one group to another group, as part of an effort to destroy the group from which the child is taken “Nondiscrimination” is at the heart of international human rights law, and the UN Charter itself states that human rights must be guaranteed to all, without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion Under human rights law, nondiscrimination is a separate norm, distinct from prohibitions against arbitrary killing or other ill treatment Under the Genocide Convention, however, discrimination and the attempt to destroy a group are implicitly linked This linkage derives from the fact that it is not widespread killing per se that constitutes genocide—it is rather the attempt to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group In contrast to the less restrictive characterizations of genocide that are part of international human rights norms, the Genocide Convention requires that three conditions must be obtained before an act rises to the level of the crime of genocide: [1] the commission of a prohibited act (killing, transferring children, imposing conditions of life, and so on) [2] with the intent of destroying a group [3] of a particular kind, that is, national, ethnical, racial, or religious This restrictive formulation deliberately excludes from its scope the murder of political opponents and indiscriminate violence— although the widespread killing of individuals, whether or not the individuals belong to a particular group, surely violates contemporary human rights norms The prohibitions of the Genocide Convention are limited to acts calculated to destroy a group physically, and the convention fails to address issues of discrimination or cultural intolerance Human rights norms have evolved to fill this gap, by recognizing special rights for certain kinds of minorities Under Article 27 of the Civil and Political Covenant, for example, rights are granted to members of ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities within states In Europe, both linguistic and national minorities are protected by conventions and institutions created in the 1990s Modern formulations of minority rights include, among other things, the rights of minority group members to use their own language; to practice their own culture; to be educated in ways that will preserve and promote their distinct characteristics; and to participate effectively in the economic and political life of their society In part, this broadening protection of minority rights is evidence that the mere prohibition of violence against minority groups is insufficient to protect them and to promote tolerance and diversity But when these rights are respected, in spirit as well as letter, genocide is much less likely to occur Implementing Human Rights Given the fact that the Genocide Convention was adopted in 1948, it is not surprising that it dealt only encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY [479] Human Rights with the most heinous kinds of human rights abuses Unfortunately, its early adoption also meant that a consensus could not be reached on how the convention might be implemented effectively—beyond the purely legal obligations imposed on states when they ratified it Today, human rights treaties generally have provisions that require the creation of institutions to oversee the implementation of those treaties These institutions are usually composed of individual experts, rather than the diplomatic representatives of states, and their powers vary widely Typically, human rights bodies are given the power (1) to periodically review and comment on reports submitted by state parties, in which the states describe how they are implementing the treaty in question and what problems they have encountered in doing so; (2) to receive, investigate, and determine the validity of allegations, made by individual victims or other state parties, that a state has violated its obligations under the treaty; (3) to investigate and report on the overall state of human rights in a particular country, outside the context of specific complaints; (4) [in the case of conventions on torture] to visit places of detention to ensure that ill-treatment is not occurring; (5) to interpret the treaty, often via the issuance of commentaries on specific rights or the scope of state obligations; and (6) to educate governments and the general public on the content of human rights law There are now three regional human rights courts The European Court of Human Rights is the only permanent human rights body in the world, and every party to the European Convention on Human Rights is legally bound to obey the court’s judgments The judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights are also legally binding (on parties to the American Convention on Human Rights), but acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction by those parties is optional The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights was created in January 2004, although only a minority of African Union members has thus far accepted its jurisdiction Direct means of enforcing human rights treaties, such as the creation of bodies of experts and international tribunals, were unknown when the Genocide Convention was adopted in 1948, and the law that served as a model for the drafters of the convention was that of traditional international law between states No specialized institution to oversee the convention was provided for, and signatory states are under no obligation to provide reports on their conduct to any international body Although states are legally required under general international law to abide by their obligations under the convention (pursuant to the doctrine of pacta sunt servanda [promises must be kept]), there is no [480] forum automatically available to complainants that might hear complaints that a state is not fulfilling its obligations In particular, individuals have no right under the Genocide Convention or customary international law to direct access to an international court or other body that could determine whether their rights have been violated Article of the Genocide Convention does provide that disputes between the state parties, including disputes that have to with the responsibility of a state for genocide that has been committed, or for allowing genocide to go unpunished, can be submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for resolution Unfortunately, some states opted out of this provision by filing a reservation to the convention at the time they ratified it; the ICJ upheld this practice in a 1951 Advisory Opinion, even though the Convention does not specifically provide for it Despite the many instances of genocide and alleged genocide that have become apparent since 1948, only two petitions alleging a violation of the Geneva Convention have been submitted to the ICJ Both grew out of the war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and they were filed against Serbia and Montenegro (by Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) The omissions are only too obvious: Although Rwanda has been a party to the convention since 1975, it has not accepted Article and thus could not be brought before the ICJ without the Rwandan government’s special consent Cambodia is a party to the convention and has accepted the court’s jurisdiction, but no state was willing to challenge the conduct of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s by submitting a petition to the court, despite the efforts of many nongovernmental organizations to promote such an application Human Rights Crimes and Human Rights Violations It is not uncommon to read references to human rights crimes in the press and other media, and many people view the newly created International Criminal Court (with headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands) as a human rights court Such references are incorrect, however, and they blur a basic difference between (abrogations of) human rights per se and the international crime of genocide The protection of human rights is primarily an obligation of states or governments—those obligations stemming from international treaties and customary international law While there are increasing efforts to impose moral or political obligations on corporations and other bodies in the private sphere to respect human rights, the obligation to promote and protect the encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Human Rights human rights of individuals over whose lives these bodies hold sway legally falls on states Although there are a few exceptions, international human rights law does not generally impose criminal liability on those who may be the individual agents of human rights violations Neither the policeman who seizes a banned publication, nor the magistrate who sends an accused person to prison after an unfair trial, nor the bureaucrat who discriminates against a religious group in making social welfare payments is committing a crime under international law, even though each of these acts might constitute a human rights violation on the part of the government that the individual agent represents One of the only exceptions to this principle is the crime of torture, which has been specifically designated as an international crime under both global and regional antitorture treaties The other major exception, of course, is genocide Article of the Genocide Convention begins by affirming that genocide “is a crime under international law which they [the parties to the treaty] undertake to prevent and punish.” Articles and specify that states will adopt laws to ensure “effective penalties” for persons guilty of genocide, and that persons accused of genocide will be tried by the state in which the genocide occurred (or by an international tribunal) The distinctions between human rights violations and individual crimes may help to explain the absence of provision for enforcement machinery in the Genocide Convention There was no international criminal court in 1948, and one would not come into force until more than fifty years later Thus, because the criminal prosecutions called for under the convention could only be carried out by national authorities, the drafters may have felt that there was no need to create a new international oversight body Treaty formulations of the particularly heinous conduct called genocide have more common ground with the concept of a war crime or crime against humanity, rather than the typical human rights violation For example, some types of conduct that take place within the context of an armed conflict are criminalized in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and states must punish those who commit grave breaches of the laws of war As was true for the Genocide Convention, the 1949 Geneva Conventions set up no new mechanisms to monitor the implementation of the provisions of the conventions, and enforcement was left to domestic law More direct international enforcement of international criminal norms was not achieved until 2002, when the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) entered into force The Rome Statute con- fers on the ICC jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide Human rights violations per se are not addressed under the ICC Statute, although the crimes it enumerates, if committed or tolerated by a government, would also constitute violations of a state’s obligations under international human rights law Of course, the impact on victims is the same, whether, technically, they are victims of crime or of a human rights violation But a verdict of genocide demands that there be an element of conscious intent (to destroy a protected group), which is absent from definitions of human rights obligations The various international oversight bodies created to monitor the implementation of human rights treaties not need to inquire into the motives of those responsible for alleged human rights violations It is enough if government actions violate international norms; those governments need not also intend to commit the violation This element of specific intent is what often leads lawyers and diplomats to contend with one another over whether a situation in which large numbers of people are being killed constitutes “genocide.” The presence (or absence) of conscious intent in the human rights context is irrelevant, since “arbitrary” killings are prohibited no matter what their motivation(s) Every state is required to protect people under their jurisdiction from wholesale violations of the right to life, whether or not the deaths result from a discriminatory or genocidal motivation Conclusion At the time it was adopted, the Genocide Convention was a milestone in international law, as it set limits on what a state was allowed to within its own borders to its own citizens Today, the international attention that is garnered by the internal affairs of states is familiar The acts that constitute genocide are now illegal under a variety of domestic and international legal regimes At the same time, genocide remains an emotive word, as it evokes the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust and the end-of-century killings in Rwanda Diplomats avoid its use, fearing the political consequences of identifying murderous events as genocide in instances in which they are unable or unwilling to stop the events For opposite reasons, activists (oblivious to or wishing to reject genocide’s actual definition in the Genocide Convention) attach the label of genocide to almost any killing of an identifiable group of people Legalistic and diplomatic debates over what constitutes genocide usually obscure the real question, which is—how the international community should react to encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY [481] Human Rights widespread human rights violations or losses of life, whether or not the criminal actions meet the strict requirements of the Genocide Convention Today, there is no concrete international law that permits the use of armed intervention in the prevention of serious human rights violations, although Rwanda and the Balkan wars have inspired a burst of scholarly and political commentary on this issue Those who support intervention in extreme circumstances certainly believe that halting ongoing or imminent genocide justifies the use of force, but the limiting of intervention to genocide as it is defined in statutes may negate or nullify the principle of intervention There is, as yet, no consensus on what criteria might justify intervention, who should authorize it, and by whom intervention might be carried out Despite its symbolic importance, genocide is now only one of many harms that international law seeks to prevent Whether or not genocide was committed in Cambodia, Ethiopia, or the former Yugoslavia is less important than the fact that government-sponsored terror in these countries resulted in the deaths of millions of people Rather than argue about what to call the killings, advocates should focus on how to prevent them and how to stop them if they recur Protecting the lives of those at risk, for whatever reason—and continuing the daily task of promoting the human rights of tolerance, participation, and free expression—is more likely to accomplish the humanitarian goals of those who first sought to outlaw genocide SEE ALSO Humanitarian Law; International Law [482] BIBLIOGRAPHY Buergenthal, Thomas, Dinah Shelton and David P Stewart (2002) International Human Rights in a Nutshell, 3rd edition Minneapolis, Minn.: West Craven, Matthew (1998) The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press Donnelly, Jack (2002) Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, 2nd edition Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press Hannum, Hurst, ed (2004) Guide to International Human Rights Practice, 4th edition Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational Holzgrefe, J L and Robert O Keohane, eds (2003) Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Ignatieff, Michael (2002) Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001) The Responsibility to Protect Ottawa, Ontario: International Development Research Centre Megret, Frederic, and Philip Alston, eds (2004) The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press Provost, René (2004) International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Risse, Thomas, et al., eds (1999) The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change Cambridge: Cambridge University Press United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Available from http://www.unhchr.ch Weissbrodt, David, Joan Fitzpatrick, and Frank Newman (2001) International Human Rights: Law, Policy, and Process, 3rd edition Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson Hurst Hannum encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY ... torture) that have been committed against African Americans within the context of enslavement and/ or apartheid are ancillary to the crimes of enslavement and apartheid Enslavement and apartheid (as... Somalia, Intervention in South Africa Sudan Uganda Asia and Oceana Australia Bangladesh/East Pakistan Burma/Myanmar Cambodia China East Timor Hiroshima India, Modern Indonesia Iran Iraq Japan Kalimantan... Feinstein Assassinations Brian K Morgan Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal Pasha Vahakn N Dadrian encyclopedia of GENOCIDE and CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY [B] Babi Yar Karel C Berkhoff Bagosora, Théoneste Howard Adelman