An Odious Scourge: The Challenge of the Genocide Convention

The language of the Genocide Convention is, as my friend/fellow blogger Martha put it, emotional and heartfelt -- despite the various political compromises made during its drafting, the UN treaty that defines genocide as a "crime under international law" is rooted in reactions of horror to the crimes of Hitler's hateful regime, and the very human face of evil.

The Convention calls for international cooperation to "liberate mankind from such an odious scourge," and commits its signatories "to prevent and to punish" the crime. Implicit in its adoption is the idea that national sovereignty was no longer considered absolute -- governments and the individuals within them are not entitled to abuse their own citizens and claim immunity and non-interference, but rather, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights made even clearer, are endowed with responsibilities and obligations to protect basic human rights and freedoms.

This shift from sovereignty without question to sovereignty with responsibility was made explicit with the recent doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, as adopted by the UN in 2005, which asserts that the responsibility to protect basic human rights falls to the international community should a national government fail or refuse to do so. Thus far, however, the world has done a shoddy job of upholding the values in the Genocide Convention and subsequent international human rights treaties.

But genocide and crimes against humanity do not occur in a vacuum. No international action, from diplomacy to sanctions to full-scale military intervention, occurs in isolation, but has reverberations throughout political and economic international relations. While the lack of political will is often the greatest challenge in mobilizing a response to situations of mass atrocity, it is only the first step in weighing options and designing an effective strategy that minimizes the chance for unintended negative consequences.

US involvement in Sudan, for instance, is not confined to bilateral relations alone, but touches on relations with China, Russia, Egypt, the African Union, the Arab League and public opinion in the Arab world (including how it relates to Israel and Palestine), the UN system, counter-terrorism efforts, and beyond. The US invasion of Iraq, which was belatedly given a humanitarian justification after Bush failed to turn up any weapons of mass destruction, had a huge impact of the world's perception of our country's intentions vis-à-vis the rest of the world. We may believe that an intervention is benevolently motivated, but many other parts of the world are skeptical.

So if the first hurdle is mustering the political will to respond, the second is to respond intelligently - to make sure the cure isn't worse than the disease. We live in an increasingly connected world, one in which a poor choice of poster slogan can contribute to an international backlash against a movement that seems morally unassailable. Talk about the chessboard of global politics may see petty when compared to such large scale loss of life, but it is the reality of the world we live in -- the reality that we must navigate if we hope to have a discernable impact.

[December 9 marks the 61^st anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide -- this is part of a week of posts discussing the challenges of its implementation.]

Photo from Rwanda's Nyamata Memorial.