Reducing Genocide to Law PDF Download

Author: Payam Akhavan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521824419
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Why is genocide the 'ultimate crime' and does this distinction make any difference in confronting evil?

Author: Nasour Koursami
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9462652252
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
This book examines the position of ‘contextual elements’ as a constitutive element of the legal definition of the crime of genocide, and determines the extent to which an individual génocidaire is required to act within a particular genocidal context. Unlike other books in the field of the study of the crime of genocide, this book captures the nuance and the complex issues of the debate by providing book-length comprehensive examination of the position of contextual elements in light of the evolution of genocide as a concept and the literal legal definition of the crime of genocide, which expressly characterized the crime with only the existence of an individualistic intent to destroy a group. With scholars of international criminal law, students, researchers, practitioners in the field, and international criminal tribunals in mind, the author tackles many of the issues raised on the position of contextual elements in both academic literature and judicial decisions. Nasour Koursami is the Director of Applied Research and a Lecturer at the National School of Administration in Chad. He studied law at Cardiff and Bristol Universities and holds a Ph.D. in International Law from the University of Edinburgh.

Author: Klejda Mulaj
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019264825X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This volume introduces 'postgenocide' as a novel approach to study genocide and its effects after mass killing has ended. It investigates how the material violence of genocide translates into contests over memory, remembrance, and laws, and the re-imagining of political community. Contributions come from academics across a broad range of disciplines, including law, political science, sociology, and ethnography Chapters in this volume explore the various permutations of genocide harms, and scrutinise the efficacy of genocide laws and the prospects for their enforcement. Others engage with socio-political responses to genocide, including efforts to reconciliation, as well as genocide's impacts on victims' communities. Contributions examine the reconstruction of genocide narratives in the display of victims' objects in museums, galleries, and archives.This book brings together cutting edge research from a variety of disciplines, to address formerly overlooked themes and cases, exploring what a diversity of perspectives can bring to bear on genocide scholarship as a whole.

Author: Nigel Eltringham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108485596
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
This is the first comprehensive ethnographic account of an international criminal court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Author: Payam Akhavan
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 1487002017
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
A work of memoir, history, and a call to action, the CBC Massey Lectures by internationally renowned UN prosecutor and scholar Payam Akhavan is a powerful and essential work on the major human rights struggles of our times. Renowned UN prosecutor and human rights scholar Payam Akhavan has encountered the grim realities of contemporary genocide throughout his life and career. He argues that deceptive utopias, political cynicism, and public apathy have given rise to major human rights abuses: from the religious persecution of Iranian Bahá’ís that shaped his personal life, to the horrors of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, the genocide in Rwanda, and the rise of contemporary phenomena such as the Islamic State. But he also reflects on the inspiring resilience of the human spirit and the reality of our inextricable interdependence to liberate us, whether from hateful ideologies that deny the humanity of others or an empty consumerist culture that worships greed and self-indulgence. A timely, essential, and passionate work of memoir and history, In Search of a Better World is a tour de force by an internationally renowned human rights lawyer.

Author: Onur Uraz
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000628566
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This book offers an in-depth examination into genocide law by focusing on one of the lesser examined, yet practically significant, issues: the ‘substantiality requirement’. This refers to the requirement in international law that intended destruction should be directed towards a ‘substantial’ part of a protected group in order for an atrocity to qualify as genocide. This comprehensive and detailed study draws connections between different judicial approaches to ‘substantiality’ and the varying theoretical presumptions about the constitutive concepts of the crime. This prima facia doctrinal problem is used as a springboard to scrutinise the broader theoretical problems underlying the legal conceptualisation of genocide. The book systematically explores how the individualistic and collectivistic conceptions of the crime have been able to co-exist in case law and how the different approaches to assessing substantiality have played a backdoor role between these two conceptions. The work demonstrates that these two philosophical standpoints are far from effectively representing the reality of the protected groups and fully explaining the harm inherent to group destruction. The book revisits the recent philosophical and sociological studies on the crime and, considering ideas from the emerging ‘relational approaches to genocide’, offers a third way to understand the existing legal representation of the crime and, consequently, the idea of ‘substantiality’. It demonstrates the practical significance of its theoretical debates and applies its novel perspective through a case study on South Sudan. This book will be highly useful to students and scholars with an interest in genocide studies, international criminal law and legal theory. It will also be of interest to policymakers engaged with issues around genocide.

Author: Paola Gaeta
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199570213
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 616

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Book Description
The Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948, is one of the most important instruments of contemporary international law. It was drafted in the aftermath of the Nuremberg trial to give flesh and blood to the well-known dictum of the International Military Tribunal, according to which 'Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced'. At Nuremberg, senior state officials who had committed heinous crimes on behalf or with the protection of their state were brought to trial for the first time in history and were held personally accountable regardless of whether they acted in their official capacity. The drafters of the Convention on Genocide crystallized the results of the Nuremberg trial and thus ensured its legacy. The Convention established a mechanism to hold those who committed or participated in the commission of genocide, the crime of crimes, criminally responsible. Almost fifty years before the adoption of the Rome Statute, the Convention laid the foundations for the establishment of the International Criminal Court. It also obliged its Contracting Parties to criminalize and punish genocide. This book is a much-needed Commentary on the Genocide Convention. It analyzes and interprets the Convention thematically, thoroughly covering every article, drawing on the Convention's travaux preparatoires and subsequent developments in international law. The most complex and important provisions of the Convention, including the definitions of genocide and genocidal acts, have more than one contribution dedicated to them, allowing the Commentary to explore all aspects of these concepts. The Commentary also goes beyond the explicit provisions of the Convention to discuss topics such as the retroactive application of the Convention, its status in customary international law and its future. "

Author: Guénaël Mettraux
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192581074
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 698

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Book Description
Judge Mettraux's four-volume compendium, International Crimes: Law and Practice, will provide the most detailed and authoritative account to-date of the law of international crimes. It is a scholarly tour de force providing a unique blend of academic rigour and an insight into the practice of international criminal law. The compendium is un-rivalled in its breadth and depth, covering almost a century of legal practice, dozens of jurisdictions (national and international), thousands of decisions and judgments and hundreds of cases. This first volume discusses in detail the law of genocide: its definition, elements, normative status, and relationship to the other core international crimes. While the book is an invaluable tool for academics and researchers, it is particularly suited to legal practitioners, guiding the reader through the practical and evidential challenges associated with the prosecution of international crimes.

Author: Elies van Sliedregt
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019100829X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
Despite the growth in international criminal courts and tribunals, the majority of cases concerning international criminal law are prosecuted at the domestic level. This means that both international and domestic courts have to contend with a plethora of relevant, but often contradictory, judgments by international institutions and by other domestic courts. This book provides a detailed investigation into the impact this pluralism has had on international criminal law and procedure, and examines the key problems which arise from it. The work identifies the various interpretations of the concept of pluralism and discusses how it manifests in a broad range of aspects of international criminal law and practice. These include substantive jurisdiction, the definition of crimes, modes of individual criminal responsibility for international crimes, sentencing, fair trial rights, law of evidence, truth-finding, and challenges faced by both international and domestic courts in gathering, testing and evaluating evidence. Authored by leading practitioners and academics in the field, the book employs pluralism as a methodological tool to advance the debate beyond the classic view of 'legal pluralism' leading to a problematic fragmentation of the international legal order. It argues instead that pluralism is a fundamental and indispensable feature of international criminal law which permeates it on several levels: through multiple legal regimes and enforcement fora, diversified sources and interpretations of concepts, and numerous identities underpinning the law and practice. The book addresses the virtues and dangers of pluralism, reflecting on the need for, and prospects of, harmonization of international criminal law around a common grammar. It ultimately brings together the theories of legal pluralism, the comparative law discourse on legal transplants, harmonization, and convergence, and the international legal debate on fragmentation to show where pluralism and divergence will need to be accepted as regular, and even beneficial, features of international criminal justice.

Author: Benjamin Meiches
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452959676
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
How did a powerful concept in international justice evolve into an inequitable response to mass suffering? For a term coined just seventy-five years ago, genocide has become a remarkably potent idea. But has it transformed from a truly novel vision for international justice into a conservative, even inaccessible term? The Politics of Annihilation traces how the concept of genocide came to acquire such significance on the global political stage. In doing so, it reveals how the concept has been politically contested and refashioned over time. It explores how these shifts implicitly impact what forms of mass violence are considered genocide and what forms are not. Benjamin Meiches argues that the limited conception of genocide, often rigidly understood as mass killing rooted in ethno-religious identity, has created legal and political institutions that do not adequately respond to the diversity of mass violence. In his insistence on the concept’s complexity, he does not undermine the need for clear condemnations of such violence. But neither does he allow genocide to become a static or timeless notion. Meiches argues that the discourse on genocide has implicitly excluded many forms of violence from popular attention including cases ranging from contemporary Botswana and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the legacies of colonial politics in Haiti, Canada, and elsewhere, to the effects of climate change on small island nations. By mapping the multiplicity of forces that entangle the concept in larger assemblages of power, The Politics of Annihilation gives us a new understanding of how the language of genocide impacts contemporary political life, especially as a means of protesting the social conditions that produce mass violence.