Preventing Genocide and Other Violations of Human Rights

The term genocide originated in the 20th century. Although the phenomenon occurred in previous centuries, the last century could truly be called the Age of Genocide and “ethnic cleansing”, which could more accurately be termed violence of a genocidal nature.

The UN Genocide Convention approved by the General Assembly in December 1948 defines genocide in Article 2 as an act of “destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”, including killing, seriously injuring, or causing mental harm to member of such groups, inflicting upon such groups adverse living conditions so that the physical destruction of the group is threatened, deliberate attempts to prevent members of the group from having children, and forcibly transferring children from one group to another. Under the Convention conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to commit genocide and complicity in genocide are also punishable.

It is clear that the Convention was passed in response to the Holocaust, the attempt by the Nazi regime in Germany to exterminate the Jews in which six million Jews were taken to death camps and murdered. The Nuremberg trials were a catalyst for this ambitious effort to extend the international criminal law in a brave attempt to enable it to deal with the most horrendous mass violations of human rights, crimes against humanity.

The tragic reality is that the noble intentions of those who drafted the Convention have not been translated into effective action. The genocide committed by the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, estimated to have cost around two million lives, could not be prevented or terminated by the international community. The same is true of the genocide of Rwanda. Intervention by the UN and NATO to stop genocidal violence in Bosnia and Kosovo was very belated, though ultimately highly effective, but it is clear that the UN acting alone would not have had the resources to implement the will of the Security Council.

The weaknesses of the UN and other Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) in dealing with the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region were once again being tragically demonstrated. Representatives of various governments who have visited the huge refugee camps in South and West Darfur and spoken to some of those who have been forced to flee from their homes and briefed themselves on the crises have described the violence committed against the African rural population by the Janjawid Arab militia, backed by the Sudanese government, as genocidal in character.

Over a quarter of a million people were forced out their homes. Many have been subjected to rape, murder, and looting by the Janjawid and it is estimated that well over 100, 000 people have died in the attacks on civilians.

The crises began in February 2003, when the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army started a rebellion against the Khartoum authorities in order to obtain political recognition and a larger share of Sudan’s resources. The government’s response was to arm and unleash the Janjawid Arab militia, though government officials have repeatedly denied all responsibility for Janjawid attacks. Three years later the UN had still been unable to take effective action other than to send humanitarian aid to the hard-pressed refugees. The major obstacle to getting Security Council agreement on sanctions against Sudan has been China, which as a permanent member can veto any such proposal. It is important to note that China has extensive commercial interests in Sudan and has repeatedly opposed UN intervention, even when the humanitarian case is overwhelming. Even the delivery of humanitarian aids has repeatedly been jeopardized by attacks on aid agency staff and by the looting of World Food Programme (WFP) trucks.

Although it is hard to find examples of significant improvement in the effective prevention of genocidal violence and major war crimes, there has been some modest progress towards finding international judicial measures and mechanisms to bring war criminals to justice. For example, the Hague Tribunal to deal with war crimes suspects from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and the parallel Tribunal set up to deal with war crimes suspects from Rwanda have been very rigorous in their conduct of trials. The Hague Tribunal to deal with the former Yugoslavia was set up in 1993 and was in the process of conducting the trial of Slobodan Milosevic before his death from natural causes. This was the most important of all The Hague war crimes tribunal cases so far because this was the first time a former head of state had been put on trial to face charges of this kind.

It is hardly surprising that in the last century, characterized by the most terrible wars and mass violation of human rights in history, the international community struggled to find ways of bringing those guilty of war crimes to justice before their own courts. In many cases this proves impossible because the accused person/persons flee abroad. In other cases, for example in Serbia, the persons wanted for war crimes are sheltered by sympathizers who refuse to divulge their whereabouts. And in cases where, for example, a former dictator is put on trial before a court in his own state, it is by no means certain that the judicial system will be capable of dealing with the formidable complexities involved. The International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremburg, which tried the main leadership of the Nazi regime, proved a highly effective way of brining major war criminals to justice. Not surprisingly this judicial device has been found invaluable in dealing with mass violations of human rights in more recent conflicts.

Many people assumed that the most appropriate way of bring the former Iraqi dictation, Saddam Hussein, to justice was to let the Iraqi legal system deal with the case. The fact that Iraqi courts and judges had no previous experience or expertise in handling such cases was overlooked. A better solution might have been to set up a special international tribunal comprising judges with special qualifications and experience in handling international human rights law. An even better alternative might have been to hand over responsibility for the trial to the newly established International Criminal Courts (ICC).

International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) provided a highly effective mechanism for bringing war criminals from Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia to justice. It is a matter of record that under the tough and determined leadership of the UN war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal achieved an impressive series of successful prosecutions. The success of ICTY was of course assisted by the strong backing of the US government.

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