What barriers are there to the effective prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity - Essay Example

? World Genocides: Impediments to Prompt Intervention Details: al Affiliation: World Genocides: Impediments to Prompt Intervention Introduction Generally considered the pinnacle of human rights catastrophes of the twentieth century, historical genocides consumed tens of millions of lives in horrendous episodes that forever left behind inerasable scars right under the very watch of the international community. The human race continue to talk of the visible and the invisible mass killings, some of which have acquired explicit names, yet little action have come forth to secure sustainable world peace. Shortly after the turn of the new millennium, the Darfur mass murders accompanied by unimaginable destruction, mass rapes, and dislocation followed a familiar trend that has long demanded a concerted, prompt effort as the rest of the world watched the events of the other side of human nature unfold unabated. Sixty years after the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), and two solid decades after its ratification by the most powerful nation on earth, the United States, the world still lacks reliable institutional frameworks to confront the evil inherent in the subject matter at hand. The term ‘genocides’ has its origin in the work of Raphael Lemkin’s 1944 analysis of the Holocaust titled Axis Rule in Occupied Europe; an enormous task that basically found the phrase ‘mass killing’ rather inadequate to fully capture the atrocities of the event (Kentis, 2011, p.3). Before Lemkin’s work, crimes of mass atrocities [“crimes of crimes”] lacked “explicit identity” (Power, 2002, p. 30). While its precise definition varies among modern scholars, Article II of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide (UNCG) defines genocide as: “Any of the below acts committed with the intent ‘to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group: Killings targeted at members of a group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberate actions on a group calculated to bring about its physical extinction in whole or in part; Imposed measures intended to prevent births within a group; and/or Forceful transfer of children of a group to another’ (Jones, 2006, p. 12-13). Scholars are in agreement that genocides are not natural disasters, but man-made occurrences that are preventable (Fein, 2000, p. 42). Despite the inherent flaws with regards to the legal definition adopted at the above mentioned convention concerning what exactly constitutes genocide, its recognition as a crime of humanity, without a doubt, reinforced the legitimacy by the international community to act, on humanitarian grounds, to prevent and possibly stop the elements with ill intentions from actualizing any form of pre-planned atrocities. To date, the convention’s statutes largely remains monumental with genocide intervention, even with immense evidence of ethnic cleansing taking place, occurring at the final stages of Stanton’s eight stage model (Stanton, 2008). This paper briefly elaborates on some of the barriers towards effective prevention of world genocides and crimes against humanity; and where possible the analysis will include the flawed nature of the theoretical frameworks that seem to work only in paper, the blockade erected by the concept of ‘State sovereignty’, the difficulty of holding perpetrators to account, and the general lack of international will/interest to intervene in matters considered domestic. The Impediments to the Prevention of Crimes against Humanity The campaigns initiated by Lemkin to include and subsequently prohibit genocide under the international laws was more than a welcome call for international action as demonstrated by UN General Assembly’s nod on the 9th December 1948. To be sure, even though the word genocide may appear recent in origin, the concept is almost as old as mankind (Jones, 2006, p. 3). According to Heidenrich (2001, p.8), more than 200 million innocent men, women and children fell victims of genocides occurring at various times in the course of the twentieth century alone. Most of the mass killings that contributed to the escalating numbers occurred during periods of armed conflict; the 149 B.C total destruction of Carthage by the Romans serves to provide a better example. Nonetheless, there exists a legal distinction between ‘war’ and mass annihilation; that while cases of war mainly involve armed combatants with some precautionary sense of sparing civilians, mass killings [genocides] have no special regards even for the defenseless, the voiceless or the innocent as demanded by the international law (Heidenrich, 2001, p. 1). The execution of 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men in a span of one week in Srebrenica (Mennecke, 2008, p. 512) and the over 40 thousand displaced Tutsi persons losing their lives within six hours in Butare (Jones, 2006. p. 239) exemplify the whole mark of genocides of the century in both the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, respectively. In any of the cases reported to have reached the limits of genocides, the governing leadership [governments] are labeled the principal architects fusing the two [war and genocide] to accomplish certain planned agenda. Genocides are, therefore, systematically sanctioned actions legitimatized by the authority of a leadership in control whipping the support of an ethic divide to carry out mass atrocities (Alvarez, 2001). As much as solid support bases are fundamental prerequisites for genocidal incidences, they also depend much on the willingness from the international community to actually do nothing; facts that also serve to legitimatize genocidal actions (Vetlesen, 2000). Prompt intervention in the genocidal processes is often dogged by a number of factors dictated by fear and not knowing how exactly to get involved without making a misstep (Cohen, 2001). First and foremost, it is, according to the international law, a blatant violation of the principle of state sovereignty to intervene in the domestic affairs of another country without following the due processes outlined by the same law-approval by the United Nations Security Council. Given the fact that the responsibility is spread across the larger international community, the reduced feelings of guilt more than justify the option to remain silent (Staub, 2002). Power (2002, p. 69) further writes that the high respect accorded to the principle of state sovereignty has been a powerful barrier that not only handcuffed even the uncontested world hegemon in the last seven decades; a country with immense powers to act solely on obvious cases gravitating towards genocides, the United States, but also prevented a number of states, including the United States itself, from ratifying the 1948 United Nations convention in Paris for a couple of years. It is evident from the foregoing that the very definition of state sovereignty, as enshrined in international law, that entitles states to non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other nations, directly conflicts with the idea of Universal Human Rights-a course that champions for the protection of people’s rights, particularly where such are threatened, the world over. The coexistence of the two concepts has never been a cozy affair; more often than not they have antagonized rather than complementing each other. Ayoob (2001, p.93) drives the point home by stating that the watchdog tasks bestowed upon the International Human Rights cuts across borders with almost limitless obligations that clearly “erodes rather than preserve the principle of state sovereignty.” However, even the numerous human rights watch bodies set up to alert the world of such heinous crimes have done very little to help stop crimes of mass atrocities. Donnelly and Howard write that: “Unless there is an explicit enforcement mechanism attached to the obligation, its enforcement rests simply on the good faith of the parties. The Universal Declaration contains no enforcement mechanisms of any sort. Even if we accept it as having the force of international law, its implementation is left entirely in the hands of individual states” (1987, p. 87). Kofi Annan’s (2000) report to the United Nations explicitly termed the conflict a “dilemma” of principles that not only needs defense on both ends, but also one that “does not tell us which principle should prevail when they are in conflict" (2000, p. 48). Even with the inherent complexities in the task of protection of human rights, ICISS asserts that every sovereign state has a duty to protect its citizens against catastrophes such as mass murder and famine, which are clearly avoidable; a three-pronged responsibility that comprises of the obligation to prevent, react, and rebuild (ICISS, 2001, p. 35). Political theorist Thomas Hobbes long affirmed in his writings that states derive their sovereignty from their capacity to guarantee the protection of fundamental human rights (Hobbes, 1991, p.120-121). Under certain conditions, therefore, a proven inaction by the state itself violates the very core mandate bequeathed on it by the so called sovereign status -the protection of human rights; an omission that calls for the immediate suspension of the very state sovereignty as acknowledged in the concept of R2P. There is a general consensus among genocide researchers that members of an ethnic group share certain unique bond, amassing positive attributes to their members, while maintaining a collective perception of the out-group members (Nelson, 2006). The promotion of in-group formed identity, as Waller (2007) notes, facilitates some form of competition with those of the out-group members. Waller goes ahead to note that genocidal regimes often emphasize personalized collectivistic values, which in essence, promotes hostility towards other ethnicities. In the Rwandan case, for instance, whereas the Tutsis strongly believed that their release from the colonial burden was a reprieve for the development of all in Rwanda, the Hutus considered them ‘aliens’ who had no claim of equal prosperity in the shared territorial boundaries of Rwanda as a nation . Under their very watch, therefore, the Rwandan leadership encouraged the weakening of “the usual inhibitions against violence”, through legitimate authorization, routinisation and dehumanization (Day and Vandiver, 2000, p. 44). The three processes subsequently heightened the willingness to participate in mass atrocities almost absent mindedly [without due regard for the implications]. Alvarez (2001) argues that the three processes set forward the difficulty of delineating enough evidence that would amount to the intent to destroy a group in whole or in part to intervene by the rest of the world, as outlined by the convention mentioned above. As observed by the International Law Commission (ILC), [t] he definition of genocide consists of two controversial elements, the need to prove intent (mens rea) and the extent of the prohibited acts contemplated [such as number of victims] in the concept genocide (actus reus) to pave way for legitimate intervention (Greenawalt,1999, p. 2264). The inclusion of the words "in part" in the Paris Genocide Convention, in particular, clearly seems to open a Pandora box of varied interpretations that can potentially be embarrassing and harmful for any form of foreign intervention, should the reasons fail to meet the threshold of genocide as defined by the mentioned convention. Quantifying the substantiality of the targeted part, which involves at least the examination of its numeric size “relative to the overall size of the group”; the importance of the part targeted; and the “perpetrators’ area of activity” presents a challenge to arrive at the decision to intervene. At the extreme, the murders of two or three persons belonging to the same religious group [say leaders] might conceivably be considered a genocide if the perpetrators acted with the "knowledge" that the manifest effect of such an intention qualifies the definition of destroying a part of a particular group (Greenawalt,1999, p. 2290). At least to the extent that accountability is framed on knowledge of destructive effects of intentions, it would be sensible enough to intervene if the ‘in part’ crosses some level bar, which is rather ambiguous in the definition. The international community often justifies their inaction on the “insufficiently broad,” definition of genocide, which according Stuart Stein, fosters an environment of protracted debate, rather than decisive action (Stein, 2006, p. 1). Opposition to the intervention in the Cambodian, Iraq, and Bosnian genocides, for instance, were drawn on the basis that the casualty count relative to the overall targeted group members were too low to warrant the involvement of the international community; a reason that could have possibly masked the true motives of inaction among the world powers (Power, 2002, p. 66). Finally, the lack of political will/interest is yet another major impediment often cited by scholars in the contentious foreign nations’ inaction in stopping atrocities of crime of crimes and other related crimes of humanity. Among the contributing factors advanced by genocide scholars to the state of affairs include self-determination/sovereignty, risks of ‘unnecessary’ injury to foreign troops [the doubts over intervention effectiveness informed buy the Americans encounter in Somalia being the core of this argument], perceived [beneficial] interest, and the concerns over financial implications involved (Markel, 2010). As mentioned earlier, foreign nations, particularly the West, often use the principle of self-determination to justify their silence. As a prime exception, however, a neighboring state possess all the legal pretext to get involved given the cross border effects inherent in such conflicts; the issue of refugees being a perfect example. In the case of Rwanda, for instance, none of the neighboring states did anything significant to help. Nonetheless, a complex counter argument usually ensues; the idea of advancing self-interest. The Tutsi rebels that actually took over the reins of power after the genocide operated from Uganda- a country with own self-interests in the ongoing conflict as opposed to the neutrality prescribed by the international law. Though Turquoise two month intervention sanctioned by France in the final stages of the Rwanda’s case helped save lives; a fact that underscores the importance of external involvement in the domestic affairs another country, the country [France] has been branded as an accomplice that had a hand in the genocide (Power, 2002, p. 346). To the extent that such issues of interests may be entangled in the process of the decision to intervene, the West, with a long history of vested interests in the resources that form the basis of conflicts oftentimes [such as the mineral rich DRC Congo], might choose to ignore the massacres underway. The October 1993 ‘unnecessary’ predicament of the American troops in Somalia has also been an inerasable event in the decision by foreign powers to intervene anywhere the world over (Power, 2002, p. 341). For the United States, in particular, heading to Rwanda after the Mogadishu ambush was not only unacceptable to the public, but was headed for a penalty by the Congress. A world leader tasked with a police function that includes the prevention of weapons of mass destruction, the lack of interest from the United States goes far beyond its borders. In an apparent reference to the financial costs involved, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in their 2001 report added their voice to the debate on the lack of international political will observing that: “The trouble with most discussions of ‘political will’ is that more time is spent lamenting its absence than on analyzing its ingredients, and working out how to use them in different contexts” (ICISS 2001, p 71). The ICISS’s proposal in the above report more than illuminates the useful parameters in “understanding the institutional processes and resources” that must be in place to actualize the R2P action. Conclusion The failure in preventing world genocides falls not in the primordial roots of conflicts or the United Nations mandate, but on the foreign powers, especially the five members of the Security Council with the means to veto internationally agreed terms. Genocides, such as the long standing situation in Darfur, are avoidable, but only with the willingness to act. Addressing the flaws informing the reasoning from the three barriers discussed herein [state sovereignty, the distortions in the definition of genocide and the lack of international political will] are particularly critical in developing and subsequently implementing effective, internationally sanctioned mandate to justify actions on humanitarian principles. References Alvarez, A. (2001) Governments, Citizens, and Genocide: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approach, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ayoob, M. (2001) ‘Humanitarian intervention and international society’, Global Governance, 7(3), 225-230. Annan, K. (2000) We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century, New York: United Nations. Cohen, S. (2001) States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering, Cambridge: Polity Press. Day, L.E. and Vandiver, M. 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