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Outlines and evaluates the political, legal, and ethical objections to humanitarian intervention. In so doing, it questions not only whether the doctrine of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ has taken hold in international society, but also whether it should – particularly in the form suggested by Western states. The author argues that the ethical position of pluralism – as articulated by non-Western states – represents the most compelling case against humanitarian intervention, by emphasizing the impact on international society of relaxing the norm of non-intervention. Despite these pluralist objections, military intervention in cases of supreme humanitarian emergency can be defended on moral grounds, provided the intervention meets certain tests of legitimacy. Given the unintended consequences of military action, the author also suggests that more attention should be paid to the non-military means of operationalizing ‘sovereignty as responsibility’.

Norman Rufus Colin Cohn (1915–2007), a Fellow of the British Academy, wrote three major histories around a single theme. The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957) related the apocalyptic beliefs of twentieth-century totalitarian movements, whether Nazi or Communist, to their origins in medieval heresy. Warrant for Genocide (1967) established that the key document of a Jewish world conspiracy, The Protocol of the Elders of Zion, was a nineteenth-century Tsarist forgery. Europe's Inner Demons (1975) argued that the belief in a Satanic pact was at the heart of witch persecution in early modern Europe. Within a year of retiring as Director of the Columbus Centre, Cohn was invited to Concordia University, Montreal, to help launch an Institute for Genocide Studies. He regarded his three books as tied to the Columbus Centre agenda and as such compatible with Lord Dacre's own search for what it was in Germany's myths and history that Adolf Hitler's mind could have been working upon in his lost years in Vienna.

This chapter contends that there are two reasons why the concept of assimilation was detached from the study of genocide. First, Armenian Genocide studies have suffered from the general weaknesses of the emerging field. Occupying the central place in these debates as a sine qua non, the Holocaust became the yardstick against which an event might or might not measure up as a genocide. As with other instances of mass violence, the fear that the events of 1915 would not be considered genocide if they did not resemble the Holocaust precluded serious analysis along the lines of dynamic social processes. Second, the understanding of assimilation as a process of the Armenian Genocide has been hampered by the character of available sources, mainly German and American consular reports, as well as missionary and survivor accounts.

This chapter explains that there are certain theses in the discussions about the Armenian Genocide which linger in the people's memory. These include the now-classic arguments that Armenian Catholics and Protestants, and the Armenians of Istanbul and Izmir, were not deported. Families of soldiers were not touched, and despite it being wartime, the government opened investigations against state officials who acted badly toward the Armenians during the deportations. Another important argument added in recent years is that the organization known as the Special Organization, which in fact enjoyed an official status through its association with the War Ministry, had no connection whatsoever with the annihilation of the Armenians.

This chapter argues that the Armenian Genocide—the first large scale mass murder of the twentieth century—must be placed in a new context and understood within that context: the commencement of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire into nation-states. Far from an isolated campaign against a single ethnoreligious group, the annihilation of the Armenians was part of an extremely comprehensive operation that was accomplished in order to save the empire. For this reason, it is not correct to interpret the Armenian Genocide along the lines of a clash between the empire's Muslim groups, more generally expressed by the concept of “Turk,” and its Christian elements. The Armenian Genocide must be understood and interpreted as a matter between the Ottoman state and its subjects that arose as a result of specific policies pursued by the regime.

This chapter details the rapid development of genocide from an academic concept to a substantive international crime. It provides a brief overview of the etymology of the term ‘genocide’ following its first usage by Professor Raphael Lemkin in 1944 to describe Nazi atrocities during World War II. It details the early usages of the concept in subsequent criminal trials of Nazi offenders, as well as the definition of genocide in the 1948 Genocide Convention. It also discusses the critical (and controversial) decision of the Convention's drafters to exclude political groups, thereby limiting the Convention to national, ethnic, racial, and religious collectives. Acts intended physically or biologically to destroy these four groups thus are condemned as ‘genocide’, whereas the identical criminal conduct—directed instead at other human collectives—is not.

This chapter focuses upon the actus reus of genocide, outlining both the conduct elements of the offence and the complexities of identifying the contours of protected groups. It first discusses the various modes of perpetration for international crimes generally, including the doctrines of command responsibility and joint criminal enterprise. It then focuses on the actus reus of genocide and details the acts prohibited under Genocide Convention that constitute physical genocide (killing group members, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, and imposing destructive conditions of life upon them) and biological genocide (preventing births within the group and removing the children of group members). It also discusses distinctions and commonalities among the racial, ethnic, national, and religious groups protected under the Genocide Convention. It further details the complexities of determining the applicable criteria for group membership and assesses the benefits and drawbacks of ascertaining membership using subjective versus objective characteristics.

This chapter addresses the personal fault elements comprising the mens rea of genocide. It discusses the crime's unique specific intent requirements and analyses the discriminatory targeting of protected groups for destruction. It addresses the complexities of ascertaining a perpetrator's specific intent to destroy a human group ‘as such’ and discusses how such intent can be established at trial. It also considers the merits of analysing the perpetrator's mental state in terms of numerical considerations (targeting either a percentage of the targeted group or a certain threshold number of victims) versus other types of criteria (such as the effects of targeting group leaders or other important segments of the group on the group's overall ability to survive ‘as such’).

This chapter addresses the question of whether, as some suggest, political genocide is prohibited already by virtue of post-Convention developments in customary international law. It discusses the evidentiary requirements necessary to establish the formation of customary international law. It then provides an empirical examination of state practice and opinio juris on genocide and political genocide. The analysis covers domestic legislation on genocide from some eighty-four states, together with nearly every domestic and international case that has applied the concept, as well as the historical records from all three drafting conferences for the Genocide Convention. It demonstrates conclusively that, although some states criminalize political genocide as a matter of domestic province, there is no basis to conclude that the crime otherwise exists as a free-standing offense under international law.

This chapter explores the relationship between genocide and other offences under international law, focusing on crimes against humanity (e.g., extermination, torture, and other forms of group violence, as well as unlawful persecution on discriminatory grounds). In some circumstances, crimes against humanity cover similar ground to genocide because they outlaw large-scale violence and prohibit serious discrimination based upon membership in certain human groups. The availability of such offences has been offered as a sufficient justification not to include political groups within the concept of genocide. The chapter compares genocide to these other aspects of international criminal law and demonstrates that these other crimes are neither a workable nor a sufficient proxy for a separate international crime prohibiting political genocide.

This chapter proposes an optional protocol to the 1948 Genocide Convention paired and an amendment to the ICC Statute to address political genocide. It considers several potential objections to creating the new offense, including its potential impact on legitimate military and law enforcement interests (e.g., terrorism prevention). It also considers whether the inclusion of political groups would interfere with the Convention itself or otherwise dilute the concept of genocide as a unique offense. It demonstrates that none of these considerations justify continued non-recognition of political genocide. The chapter then discusses the divergence between law ‘on the books’ and actual enforcement, using the situation in Darfur as an example of difficulties of exercising political will on the international plane. It concludes that the direct prohibition of political genocide through law is an essential first step to preventing and punishing atrocities aimed at destroying political groups ‘as such’.

This chapter discusses the origins and execution of the mass deportations of Albanians, Greeks and Armenians during the First World War. Rather than emphasize the role of Turkish nationalism in influencing the Ottoman government's decision to deport and murder large numbers of its non-Muslim citizens, the chapter underscores the state's concerns over the internal security of the region. It carefully points out the contradictions found within the state's decision for large numbers of these three groups, as well as the many acts of local resistance to this policy. Most accounts of the Armenian Genocide do not pay close attention to the consequences of the return of thousands of Armenians to the South Marmara after 1918, something which is dicussed in the latter part of this chapter.

The origins of the prohibition of genocide under international law date back to the end of World War II and the Nuremberg trial. The idea of the universal opposability of the prohibition of genocide in the advisory opinion on the Genocide Convention presents clear elements of analogy with the dictum on obligations erga omnes, in both substance and terminology. In examining these elements of analogy, this chapter shows how the legal reasoning followed in earlier pronouncements is an important component in the process by which later pronouncements by the International Court crystallize new legal developments. The chapter refers also to the principle of universal jurisdiction and selected aspects of the Genocide case (Bosnia v. Serbia).