The origins and dynamics of genocide

Abstract

Two of Michael Mann's recent books continue his exploration of the sources of social power and then extend it into the study of ethnic cleansing, a phenomenon which Mann wishes to see as a potential built into modern political institutions, and specifically democratic political cultures, from the start. However, this review argues that the richness of the empirical material mobilized in these books makes them more nuanced and sophisticated than Mann's own summary of them suggests.     

Responsibility to Protect or Right to Punish?

Abstract

This essay argues that the new global regime of R2P bifurcates the international system between sovereign states whose citizens have political rights, and de facto trusteeship territories whose populations are seen as wards in need of external protection. Under the direction of the UN Security Council, the International Criminal Court has become an integral part of the international R2P regime by allowing for the legal normalization of certain types of violence (such as Western counterinsurgency efforts), while arbitrarily criminalizing the violence of other states as ‘genocide’. In place of this unequal global regime, the essay concludes by arguing for an internally-driven process of political reform and legal reconciliation, as pioneered in South Africa.     

Writing about Rwanda since the Genocide: Knowledge,Power and ‘Truth’

This debate article reflects upon four articles recently published in this journal as part of a special Forum on Rwanda (Volume 8, Issue 4, 2014)—released to coincide with the 20-year commemoration of the 1994 genocide. In doing so it highlights what this author considers to be a crisis in contemporary ‘Rwanda studies’. This crisis—referenced and reproduced to some extent in all four articles—combines methodological (‘how can we write about Rwanda?’) and epistemological (‘how should we write about Rwanda?’) uncertainty against a backdrop of highly polarized, partisan and sometimes personalized research agendas. In exploring this phenomenon, the study explores not only the role of academics (mainly European and Rwandan) but also of the Rwandan government itself, highlighting the rise of ‘activist polities’ such as that in contemporary Kigali. These regimes consider knowledge production to be an aspect of their own sovereignty and this poses fundamental challenges, as yet largely unacknowledged, to parts of Western Africanist scholarship.     

The writing of modern Turkey

This review article outlines the progress that the literature on the causes of ethnic cleansing has made in the last 10–15 years. The article specifically focuses on two lines of research that have expanded our understanding of ethnic cleansing: (a) the studies that focus on the role of wars (this literature can in turn be divided into those works that treat “wars as strategic environments” and those that treat “wars as transformational forces”); (b) the studies that focus on the pre-war domestic or international conditions that hinder or promote ethnic cleansing. The last section of the article suggests several future avenues of research that could further refine the study of ethnic cleansing and its relationship to other types of mass violence.     

In search of real justice for Africa and Africans,and her/their descendants in a world of justice,injustices and impunity

Abstract

The quest for justice by Africans and peoples of African descent, wherever they may be in the world, is arguably one of the most daunting mental, psychological, moral, legal and material challenges facing humanity in general, and the peoples of Africa in particular. It is a question of whether African peoples demand justice for the wrongs committed against Africa and its peoples over the last 500 years, or whether Africa and African peoples accept complicity in the global impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of those injustices, and by doing so diminish the significance of contemporary enthusiasm for global justice. Centralising the question of impunity to date for horrendous crimes, gross human and peoples’ rights violations and other injustices against Africa and Africans is not meant to distract Africans in Africa and the diaspora from the quest, in the 21^st century, for a new Africa that we have a historical responsibility to build and, by doing so, to ensure that the past is not repeated. Acknowledging the wrongs of the past and making symbolic reparative actions for those wrongs are essential for ensuring that the pursuit for a better world of justice is not built on top of underlying sinkholes and on the waste dumps of past injustices. Critical breakthroughs, such as the commitment enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the African Union (2000), on crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and the prohibition of unconstitutional change of government, must be vigorously pursued to their logical conclusion. To do so requires an understanding of where Africans, in their relationship with peoples in the rest of the world, are coming from. Smaller parts of the world have experienced similar heinous injustices with impunity, and Africa's pursuit of real justice also applies to those states and their peoples. Corrective or reparative justice is needed to clear the path for the meaningful and honest promotion of real global justice in the making of the future. It is imperative that the making of the African Renaissance confront real global justice for the sake of the past, the present and the future.     

The Ethics of Plea Bargaining in International Criminal Trials

The paper argues that contemporary theoretical and philosophical concerns relating to the practice of plea bargaining in international trials for crimes such as genocide should be seen in the broader context of the perceived legitimacy of international trial justice. The paper questions the capacity of international trial structures to deliver a form of truth which contributes to justice suggesting that the legitimacy of the truth available is conditioned by ideology and normative practice. The paper suggests that the key to transforming international trial justice lies in promoting the link between trial ideology and the perceived moral legitimacy of its outcomes through the exercise of judicial discretionary power. Ralph Henham is Professor of Criminal Justice, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University.     

Realizing the Responsibility to Protect

Written prior to the release of the UN Secretary-General's report on implementing the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), this article examines the effort to translate the principle from words into deeds. It begins by noting a post-2005 "revolt" against the principle in which a number of states expressed skepticism about the principle and its use in different settings. This revolt, the article contends, was largely a product of the continuing association between R2P and humanitarian intervention. This association was, in turn, caused by a combination of misplaced commentary and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty's focus on the intervention question. This article maintains that building consensus on the R2P requires a shift in emphasis and proposes three avenues: clarifying the nature of prevention, developing practical measures, and proposing modest proposals for institutional reform.     

Elitocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its impact on the contemporary understanding of the crime of genocide

In my paper I will present and discuss the theoretical concept of elitocide (a systematic elimination of leading figures of a society or a group) and its impact on the crime of genocide on the example of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992–1995. A systematization and scientific classification of elitocide as a sociological phenomenon bears great importance to the field of study on genocide, mass murder and human rights abuses. The scientific elaboration of new or hitherto neglected occurrences of organized violence has a significant impact on the understanding of the phenomenon of systematic war crimes and mass atrocities in modern war conflicts. In order to better understand how genocide or potentially genocidal mass murders emerge and how they can be prevented, it is necessary to modify and redevelop their conventional theoretical framework. Since the premises of modern war have changed, the science is obliged to adapt its approach to this new reality. This paper is a contribution to making the causes and consequences of mass atrocities practically cognizable and theoretically comprehensive.     

International Constructions of National Memories: The Aims and Effects of Foreign Donors' Support for Genocide Remembrance in Rwanda

Abstract

Commemoration of the victims of conflict is a characteristic national act of post-conflict statebuilding in which the significance and ownership of memorials is typically contested. In the case of post-genocide Rwanda, such contestation is overlain with international agendas and influences. Certain international donors supported memorialization as part of programmes to aid societal reconstruction and reconciliation and to prevent conflict. Studies of international contributions to genocide memorials, especially the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, reveal tensions in this agenda, which seeks to construct both national identity and an imagined ‘international community’ and serves to extend the remit of international actors.