The definition of genocide: Joining the dots in the light of recent practice

International Criminal Law Review

Volumn 1, Issue 3-4, 2001, Pages 285-313

  Jørgensen, Nina H B ^a  

^a LEIDEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

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EID: 33947703747     PISSN: 1567536X     EISSN: 15718123     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/15718120121002630     Document Type: Article

References (86)

1. The term was coined by R. Lemkin in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington, DC, 1944).
2. See generally Anon., 'Genocide: A Commentary on the Convention', (1948-1949) 58 Yale Law Journal 1142-60;
3. J. L. Kunz, 'The United Nations Convention on Genocide', (1949) 43 AJIL 738-46;
4. J. Graven, 'Les crimes contre l'humanité', (1950-1951) RdC 429-605;
5. M. Sibert, Traité de droit international public. Le droit de la paix, I, (Paris, 1951), 446;
6. N. Robinson, The Genocide Convention: A Commentary, (New York, 1960);
7. M. N. Shaw, 'Genocide and International Law', in Y. Dinstein (ed.), International Law at a Time of Perplexity: Essays in Honour of Shabtai Rosenne (Dordrecht, 1989), 797-820;
8. M. Lippman, 'The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: Fifty Years Later', (1998) 15 Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, 415-514;
9. W. A. Schabas, Genocide in International Law, (Cambridge, 2000);
10. G. Verdirame, 'The Genocide Definition in the Jurisprudence of the Ad Hoc Tribunals', (2000) 49 ICLQ 578-98.
11. Mark Harmon, The Prosecutor of the Tribunal v Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, Case No. IT-95-18-R61, Transcript, 8 July 1996.
12. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948, 78 UNTS 277.
13. See for example Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Advisory Opinion, (1951) ICJ Reports 15, 23
14. and The Prosecutor v Goran Jelisic, Case No. IT-95-10-T, para. 60.
15. In this respect the cases before the International Court of Justice concerning state responsibility for genocide are also significant. See Case Concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia-Herzegovina v Yugoslavia), Preliminary Objections, (1996) ICJ Reports 595;
16. Order on Counter-Claims, (1997) ICJ Reports 243; (Croatia v Yugoslavia), (1999).
17. See for example W. Fenrick, 'Should Crimes Against Humanity Replace War Crimes?', (1999) 37 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 767-85, 775;
18. Schabas (n. 1 above), 11.
19. (1947) 14 Annual Digest, 278, 285.
20. Attorney-General of Israel v Adolf Eichmann, (1968) 36 ILR 5, 41.
21. The Prosecutor v Clement Kayishema and Obed Ruzindana, Case No. ICTR-95-I-T, 21 May 1999, para. 89 (hereinafter Kayishema and Ruzindana).
22. Shaw (n. 1 above), 803.
23. See UN Official Records of the Third Session of the General Assembly, Part I, Legal Questions, Sixth Committee, Summary Records of Meetings, 21 September-10 December 1948, (hereinafter Summary Records), 109th and 110th Meetings, 487-509. Robinson (n. 1 above), 55.
24. Summary Records, 109th Meeting, 490.
25. Schabas (n. 1 above), 111, argues against searching for autonomous meanings for the protected groups and suggests that: 'The four terms in the Convention not only overlap, they also help to define each other, operating much as four corner posts that delimit an area within which a myriad of groups covered by the Convention find protection. This was certainly the perception of the drafters.
26. The Prosecutor v Jean-Paul Akayesu, Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, 2 September 1998, paras 512-15 (hereinafter
27. For a discussion of the reasons for excluding political groups see Shaw (n. 1 above), 808
28. and Schabas (n. 1 above), 134-45.
29. It was felt that only a religious group could still be objectively determined, The Prosecutor v Goran Jelisic, Case No. IT-95-10-T, 14 December 1999, para. 70 (hereinafter Jelisic).
30. Kayishema and Ruzindana, para. 98.
31. The Prosecutor v Georges Anderson Nderubumwe Rutaganda, Case No. ICTR-96-3, 6 December 1999, para. 57 (hereinafter Rutaganda).
32. This wording was repeated in The Prosecutor v Alfred Musema, Case No. ICTR-96-13, 27 January 2000, para. 163 (hereinafter Musema).
33. ECOSOC Res. 117 (VI).
34. Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Genocide to the Economic and Social Council on the Meetings of the Committee held at Lake Success, New York, from 5 April to 10 May 1948
35. UN ESCOR, 7th Session, Suppl. No. 6, UN Doc E/794(1948).
36. Twenty-seven votes to twenty-two with two abstentions, Summary Records, 77th Meeting, 133.
37. Summary Records, 78th Meeting, 139. The Uraguayan representative requested the establishment a working group to consider these issues but this request was rejected.
38. 3 July 1996, 111 ILR 584, 587. Hidden J argued that the words 'as such' were equivalent to 'in that capacity'
39. Robinson (n. 1 above), 60. See further pp. 303-304 below.
40. W. Jeandidier, Droit penal general (Paris, 1988), 302-3.
41. F. Desportes and F. Le Gunehec, Le Nouveau Droit Penal, Tome 1, Droit penal general (Paris, 1998), 380.
42. G. P. Fletcher, Basic Concepts of Criminal Law (Oxford, 1998), 121-2.
43. J. Smith and B. Hogan, Criminal Law, 8th edn, (London, 1996), 57-63.
44. M. Moore, 'Intentions and Mens Rea', in R. Gavison (ed.), Issues in Contemporary Legal Philosophy: the Influence of H. L. A. Hart (Oxford, 1987), 245-86, 245.
45. See A. K. A. Greenawalt, 'Rethinking Genocidal Intent: The Case for a Knowledge-Based Interpretation', (1999) Columbia Law Review, 2259-94.
46. Greenawalt (n. 46 above), 2264-5.
47. Schabas (n. 1 above), 221.
48. See also Greenawalt (n. 46 above), 2283-4, who comments on the effect of the Trial Chamber's obiter dictum as follows: 'Take, for example, the case where perpetrator A, lacking specific intent, physically exterminates members of a protected victim group. By these acts alone, perpetrator A is guilty of murder. But perpetrator B, who has ordered these acts with specific genocidal intent, is thus guilty of genocide by way of his complicity in A's actions. Under the ICTR's analysis A's knowledge of B's purposes will have the further effect of rendering A guilty by way of complicity in B's genocidal crime. Thus, despite the fact that A himself has committed the actus reus of genocide, he is only culpable because he is complicit in someone else's complicity in his own actions. In the end this curious approach presents an awkward circumvention of the specific intent requirement.
49. PCNICC/1999/L.5/Rev. 1/Add.2, 22 December 1999.
50. PCNICC/2000/INF/3/Add.2, 6 July 2000.
51. See J. Schense, 'Preparatory Commission Report', www.iccnow.org/html/ cicc200003.html.
52. PCNICC/2000/INF/3/Add.2, 6 July 2000.
53. The question whether genocide applied only to directors and planners was raised by the Commission of Experts on Rwanda, see Letter dated 9 December 1994 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/1994/1405, 9 December 1994, para. 162.
54. Kayishema and Ruzindana, para. 94.
55. Kayishema and Ruzindana, para 93.
56. B. Whitaker, Revised and Updated Report on the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985/6, 2 July 1985.
57. Greenawalt (n. 46 above), 2281.
58. See Report of Commission of Experts on Rwanda (n. 62 above), para. 93.
59. A/C.6/228. Forty-one voted in favour and eight against with two abstentions, Summary Records, 73rd Meeting, 97.
60. See, for example, N. Ruhashyankiko, Study of the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1978, E/CN.4/Sub.2/416, 14-15. In the Sixth Committee the French representative, Chaumont, held: 'If a motive for the crime existed, genocide existed even if only a single individual were the victim, ' and he proposed that the concept of genocide be extended to cover cases where a single individual was attacked as a member of a group. These arguments were not favoured by the other representatives who felt that genocide needed to be more clearly distinguishable from homicide.
61. Summary Records, 73rd Meeting, 90-1 and 92.
62. Report of the Commission of Experts on the Former Yugoslavia (n. 7 above), para. 96.
63. See L. J. Le Blanc, 'The Intent to Destroy Groups in the Genocide Convention: the Proposed U. S. Understanding', (1984) 78 AJIL 369, 370.
64. Summary Records, 73rd Meeting, 93.
65. Robinson (n. 1 above), 63.
66. Shaw (n. 1 above), 806.
67. Schabas (n. 1 above), 235.
68. Cf. Chaumont, who argued in the debates in the UN Sixth Committee that: 'The group was an abstract concept; it was an aggregate of individuals; it had no independent life of its own; it was harmed when the individuals composing it were harmed.' Summary Records, 73rd Meeting, 91.
69. Robinson (n. 1 above), 58.
70. Akayesu, para. 521. The statement by Robinson is quoted in a footnote. Earlier in its Judgment the Chamber stated 'Clearly, the victims were not chosen as individuals but, indeed, because they belonged to [the Tutsi ethnic] group', para. 124.
71. (1996) Yrbk ILC, vol. 2, pt, 2, 45.
72. Shaw (n. 1 above), 806.
73. See G. Williams, Textbook of Criminal Law, 2nd edn, (London, 1983), 70, n. 1, who states that the maxim is first found in the Leges Henrici (Laws of Henry the First) but that the concept can be traced to St. Augustine. Hall refers to a direct source of the formula in the letters of Seneca (actio recta non erit, nisi recta fuerit voluntas) and suggests that St. Augustine simply restated a particular application of it in terms of wrong rather than right (ream linguam non facit, nisi mens rea)
74. General Principles of Criminal Law, 2nd edn, (New York, 1960), 80.
75. See Smith and Hogan (n. 44 above), 31-2
76. and Williams (n. 107 above), 70.
77. J. Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence, I, 5th edn, (London, 1885), 433.
78. See also M. S. Moore, Act and Crime, The Philosophy of Action and its Implications for Criminal Law, (Oxford, 1993), 190.
79. J. Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, (New York, 1988), 80.
80. Moore (n. 110 above), 191.
81. Statute for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, 8 November 4994, 33 ILM 1598.
82. Cf. V. Morris and M. P. Scharf, An Insider's Guide to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: A Documentary History and Analysis (New York, 1998), 261-2, who state that 'the principle of command responsibility would not necessarily apply to a superior who fails to act in relation to the crime of genocide committed by a subordinate because of the specific intent required for the crime'.
83. On the requirements for complicity in genocide see Akayesu, paras 525-48.
84. P. Gourevitch, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families (New York, 1998), 96.
85. see L. R. Melvern, A People Betrayed (London, 2000).
86. The International Court of Justice has not so far drawn any direct conclusions from the establishment of the ICTY, although in its second Order on Provisional Measures it noted the Security Council's decision, (1993) ICJ Reports 325, 348. One of the most difficult questions facing the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court is that of finding the right link between Security Council determinations that an 'act' of aggression has occurred and the 'crime' of aggression to be considered before the ICC.