Notes

Jan. 15

• Destruction of human dignity → Lemkin

• Motive of destruction of the group itself

• vandalism → the deliberate destrcution/ premeditated of the cultural works (art and other artifacts)

• not just physical, but cultural

• every group has a value worth and how to transpose it to human groups

• all have the capacity and the kind of genius that is only unique to them

• includes them in the universe of groups and whose destruction is terrible

lebelling genocide 1; defining genocide as a crime

• lemkins was the only surviving member of his family

• defines the new term genocide

• deliberate destruction of a group; analogous on how you would kill a person

• not something that is not just tied to killing

• in 1942, winston churchill

• they could see what germans are doing to the jews

• crime without a name

• crime of crimes (churchill)

• talking about destruction of groups, not only the destruction of many individuals through mass killings

• you could have a massacre, use of force with lots of civilians dead, the new term genocide is the deliberate of a group

• indiscriminate use of violence, retributino, planned attack to ensure that the group is destroyed

• destruction of the essential foundations of groups; more about what the intent it with the aim of annihilating

• with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves, deprivation, food, destruction of natural and physical resources, involve the use of violence itself

• taking away deliberately, that makes a group a group

• cultural genocide is baked into the original understanding

• forced assimilation

• assimilation of groups is not necessarily genocide

• as long as assimilation is in the natural course of things, its not genocide

  • deliberate is genocide

legal definition

• un will negotiate t he term

• just like every other treaty, the members debate

• we all have the kind of things we want to highlight and think are wrong

• genocide convention reflects in many ways

• how to define a crime; elements of a crime

• big debate about if u want to leave it open, or have a specific group of people

• should these groups be included in the genocide convention?

• political groups should be defined in the group of concention, but not he soviet

• racialized ideology; when soviet’s are talking, tied to primordial groups

• primordial objective characteristics; same attributes

• seeking to end those types of groups

• if the perpetrator wants them gone, then they will tap into those types of groups

• political groups are mutable; changing

• nobody is really born into a political group

• renounce your communist affiliation

• show you are no longer a member of this group

• lemkin would have wanted cultural genocide as a seperate thing?

• it’s the west’s turn to say its unacceptable

• what makes a group vulnureable? if they are physically and culturally destroyed; prevent births

• 2nd to last draft; soviets agree to drop the cultural and west drops for political

punishment provisions

• establishing elements of a crime; mental and physical

• lower scale of intention

• lemkin → genocide is not a bunch of dead civilians

• lots of civilians harmed or killed

• what has to be behind that outcome is the intention

• actual evidence to show that intention; perpetrators deliberately want to destroy a group

• have to show that the intent of hiding

• destroying that group

• not genocide unless you can show that the use of force was done additionally through the intention of destroying the group

• proving a genocide charge is difficult

• the foundation of the crime

• show that the victims fit into these groups

• is the evidence supposed to show that the perpetrators fit into these groups and how they understand themselves

• 3rd party analysis of whether they fit into this group and how they understand it

• not until the mid 19990s, international ?? on rwanda

• groups targeted for genocide recieved low resources

• preventing birth; forced sterilization

• eliminate groups now

• forced removal; taking children who were born into the group and making sure children would lived bu tthey would never be part of the grouo

jan. 17

punishment provisions

• conspiracy is common in all kinds of crimes that involve more than one person to perpetrate

• conspiracy charges are charged with organized criminal and gang activity

• genocide means an actual act that has happened

• kinds of method of destruction

• conspiracy that is not actually complete but is at the right of planning

• done more than just idle talk

• some level of just actual plan

• conspiracy; inchoate crime

  • hasn’t been completed

  • still a prohibited act because of the plan to perpetuate a crime

  • it is possible to level a conspiracy charge on its own

  • if there were sufficient evidence that planning is going, that is not just idle chat

  • some kind of intention down the road that they are going to carry out a plan

• attempts

  • tried to carry out and failed

• incitement

  • not just at the talk level of planners

  • never people who are the willing executioners

  • people who engage in propaganda

• 1992; leon mugasera

  • mid 19990s → mid 2010s

  • ICTR and ICTY

  • makes the speech and used in the genocide to get ppl to back it

  • canadian authorities are made aware of him

  • instead of incitement, canada instead deports him and let that jurisdiction deal with him

  • deported back to rwanda

• complicity

  • knowingly aid the perpetrators

  • un convention on punishment on the crime of genocide

  • principly the convention has been usde for

  • prosecution could happen in domestic courts where the crime was committed as long as the state is part of the convention

  • competent tribunal within a member state

  • can use domestic civilian courts and can use military courts

  • international tribunal

• international criminal court

  • comes into effect in july of 2022

  • special tribunal

  • could use icc

  • but need to have some kind of standing at the icc

  • parties must come from the state

  • referral from the un criminal convention

  • individually is tried for their part

  • individual criminal responsibility

  • each individual contact must be proved at trial

  • gaccaca courts; local courts

  • obedience to order’s defence is not allowed

  • unless it’s a planning officer with a direct threat

  • lower level perpetrators have lower responsibility

  • sentencing is incoherent

  • lot less rigorous

• principle of universality

  • most serious crimes

  • belgium and spain

  • any state in the world can try and charge in genocide

  • most serious is crimes against genetics

  • crimes against the entire human family

  • state responsibility against international wrongfulness

  • These charges reflect the gravity of actions taken by states that violate fundamental human rights and the norms of international law

    • ensuring that states remain accountable

    • anything that has international law requires individuals

    • corporation as an entity engages in some criminality; choose to implicate people

    • draft treaty; not in full treaty

    • capacity for state to sue each other

    • 2007 case in bosnia vs. serbia

    • current case in january 2024

    • duress

    • current case is south africa vs israel

    • allegation by the south african state that the israelis were perpetrating genocide on gaza

    • intention on genocide

• who can be charged

  • anybody who you can show who played a role in crime of genocide or planning it

  • public officials; middle range bureaucratic organizers

  • unless u perpetrate in some way, you will be charged

• responsibilities of states

  • prevention

  • wording reflects the bare minimum

  • article 8; parties that have signed and ratified the convention may

  • icj decision in 2007 the court affirms that there is an obligation for states to prevent genocide

jan. 20

• state may call upon the confident organs of the united nations to take actions under the un charter

• prevent genocide from occuring

• role of states; use their sovereign capacity to decide for themselves

• legal obligation

• international court of justice; affirmative obligation to engage in prevention

• full knowledge that the genocide is occurinb

• un security council is not a real focus of genocide prevention

• try and response to the failure of the un security council and peacekeeping

• responsibility to protect doctrine

• r2p; emilurate the kiknd of fact of the responsibilty to rebuild

• international committee on international state sovereignity

• states have a right to their own sovereignity but it’s conditional

• solid r2p mission; libya in 2011; a kind of emerging civil war

• nato authorized mission to go in and us eforce to prevent a potential genocide

• late 2000s, genocide prevention was popular

• allbright column report

• west is not interested in moral arguments

• appeal to international self interest

• refugee flows; refugee camps

• can become haven for terrorist activity; incubator for pandemics

• genocide prevention is unlikely unless its a goldilocks plan

• unstrategic like rwanda

jan.20

related international crimes

• crimes against humanity

  • rwanda trials

  • london charter ictr

• extermination; according to the chamber

  • intent to kill persons at a mass scale

  • direct use of force; subject use of force towards people that would lead to their death

• not identified by groups; uses different kinds of methods in the genocide convention

• war criminals; only those who break geneva conventions

  • can only be convicted in warfare

• genocide can occur in war conflict and peace time

• charge crime of extermination and breaches

• prosecutors can ensure that all crimes are committed at once

  • they’re not sure that they are going to get the convention on genocide, so if they have crimes against humanity; they have a higher likely of a convention

• grave breaches; name charges in the geneva convention

  • how armed conflict should be limited

  • doesn’t say how war is started

  • how war is fought

  • grave breaches; following acts if committed against property

    • inhumane treatment

    • serious injury to bodily or health

    • unlawful deportation

    • lack of access to trial

    • taking up property not by military necessity

  • other war crimes isn’t mention because they change overtime

  • acts that violate other principles

  • distinction, proportionality, no unnecessary suffering, balanced against military necessity

    • military necessity; targeting against civilians and targeting civilian places

  • protected person; captured soldoers

• civilian can lose their status; if they decide to take up weapons

• regain it when they stop doing that

• civilians arent inherently part of conflict

• shouldn’t be targeted

• use of force on targets should equal to what is required

• ethnic cleansing; they just want them outside the location

  • increase their own resources

  • aggressive use of force to take another state

  • prohibited under international law

  • un charter; article 2 (4); states must refrain from use of force to solve international disputes

• William schabas

  • get rid of genocide because its a lot

politicization

• doesn’t accurately describe

• condemn political adversaries

• clueless denial

• hard denial

• soft denial

• how it works

• most functional

Jan. 27

• at the start of the 2nd world war, there wasn’t any scholars related to genocide study

• nazi regime and Stalinist regime

• why hitler and stalin stand at the top and why did they engage in terrible kind of policies

• how people came to be and how they came to have these ideologies; informing organizations.

• how do they overtime came to play this role?

• strategic actors; live in an altered strategic and moral universe

• appropriate right thing

• from their point of view, it’s morally correct

• they need to destroy civilians bc they are part of the insurgency

• loss in war, especially territory, economic decline

• a marginalized group; prospective theory

  • critique of a rational actor model

  • actors know how to engage in a kind of rational ordering of their preferences

  • they can take pieces of information; determines how they do

• within an organization that is hierarchical, ionce a genocide starts, there is a strong bond among the perpetrators themselves

• love for one’s own and love/hate for victims

• hate on its own is not a reason for genocide

• motivated by convenience

• ; calculation

• indigenous genocide; settle colonial states want to execute program

• counter argument; need to do a lot of hard work to separate vicigtms

Jan. 31

• as a democracy, that believes in the rule of law, the use of the law is front and center

• the idea of a divided society

• bad political outcomes that flow from the currently divided societies

• marginalization, civil war, crimes against humanity

• severe cleavages; exist alongside each other but doesn’t mean they are connected

• fragmented

• rise to a level of division between groups that lead to contestation

• segregation of policies

• eventual victims, often geographically, segreated into different parts of economy

• little interaction between groups

• segregation policies

• differential opportunities

• distortion of the law

• social practices and beliefs

• who genuinely belongs to the political community

• can give rise to an idea that there are some people who are genuine and those who are not

• oppressed or in some way then become a cursive relationship of who belongs in a community

• tw large groups;worst kind of severe cleavage is when you have two regularly matched groups

• he claims that only totalitarian regimes commit genocide

  • totalitarian states have enormous state capacity

  • total domination; nazi death camps

  • no independent capacity for action

  • have complete control over everyone

  • non-democratic regimes, assumption that they were all authoritarian

  • idea of genocide that it was not possible for democracies to commit this crime

  • relates to genocide

  • as long as you have a foreign development society, you are insulating genocide

• totalitarian ideology that gives reasons for total domination of society

• revolutionary ideology of some kind

• enormous transformation of society

• particular groups that are outside fo the revolutionary order have to be eliminated

• capacity for individuals to come together

• intervention

• use law in perpetration of the cimre

• political parties become sectarial

• demos; people, conflated with ethnos , meaning the nation

• their view of democracy is that its viewed by us

• limited democracy

• highly authoritarian regimes

• role of the law

• always happen during a criss

• economic and political crisis

feb. 3

• genocide as a trigger is what non targeted communities think what a trigger means

• what they think is going to happen in the near future

• ongoing threat from who they think is responsible

• genocide is more likely if there is a crises

• political opportunity structure; tarrow

• why social movements arise

• revolution; the kind of program where u can diagnose whats wrong with society

• project of the new political elite

• genocide is more likely if there is political oppression; after the crises there is a blaming of a group

• if group comes to power, they can come up with political change

• the more radical the change, the more likely genocide will happen

• construction of a new society and economy that requires restructure

• not all genocides take place in conflict

• interstate war; aside from civil war, warfare of any kind

• 1945; krain et al

• warfare facilitates the use of force

• use of force; shift the object and purpose of fighting to the destruction of a particular group

• kind of habitual thing where u can add to violence for purposes of armed conflict

• organization; mobilizing the security apparatus and the national military and to fight adversaries

feb. 7

• victims are defenseless and no capacity to defend themselves

• bystanders; no connection, by doing nothing, they are giving a green light that whatever the perpetrators are doing is okay wit them

• collaborators; use their own, facilitate perpetrators

• rescuers; organizations that aid victims and create underground assistance

  • problem with authority

  • have a strong moral code

• boundaries between groups are all fuzzy

• changing abt who belongs to what

• genocide entrepreneurship; policy radicalization

  • holocaust cause; working toward the fuhrer

  • indicates that he wants a different solution; have them fight amongst each other

• how can perpetrators also be victims; subaltern genocide

  • enacting a form of revenge

  • part of the perpetrator group who become victims

• victims; have capacity for agency

• victims of victims; collaborate

• the drowned + the saved; primo levy

• rescue for a while when it suits them, then they will abandon it later

indigenous genocide

• individual moments of destruction

• continuities made from german scholars

• jurgen Zimmerman; argues that whether we are talking about genocide in a settler context or in an ottoman case, that one way or another we are talking about a modern dynamic of colonialism

• \

feb. 10

• arguments that can be made that have settler colonial democracies

• founding moment of the Christian state; where the ottomans headquartered; transitioned to a detained modern nation state

• new settle colonial colonies; settler of empire, this dynamic at play

• application of direct violence

• widespread devastation

• relying on holocaust uniqueness

• fannie la fontaine; brought into the commission , makes the argument that there are some elements of indigenous genocide where the intent to kill is very clear

• key roles played by the settler population; resort to use of violence to try and affect the same type of outcome

• frontier violence by settlers

• yana (late 1870s and early 80s) exclusively by settlers

• beneficiaries; all the land that is taken and redistributed goes to settlers

• Patrick wolfe; settler colonialism is different, not the same as colonialism in asia and latin America, different kind of project

• all about taking territory permanently

• in the longer scope, both a project of destruction and construction

• see themselves as building a new world and society

• structural matter, not a singular event

• fundamental restructuring

• massive change in structure , no definitive endpoint

• exert their imperial

• doctrine of discovery; papal bulls opened up in the 1800s

• terre nullius; land without a master

• when discovery occurs ; can claim the land for their state even if other people live there

• expulsion; taking locals and forcing them to extract resources

• has to be from a colonial point of view; removing indigenous permanently from large bouts of land

• residential system; reservation system

• forced expulsion

• policies of expulsion; trail of tears

• forcible expulsion through the act of congress; indian removal act of 1830

• under president Andrew Jackson

• congress passes a law through the so-called 5 civilized tribs

• forced incorporation; biological

• deliberate race mixing; or whitening

• once indigenous people are forced to leave, indigenous people have socioeconomic outcomes entirely out of being vulnerable and dependent state

• forced assimilation of indigenous children

• indian act 1826

• whoop up trade; frontier violence and state violence

• furnace around a frontier mentality

• forts dotted across the land and meant to protect settlers

feb. 12

global structures

• a lot of people who end up in the settlements wanted a chance to won their own farm

• some people flee religious persecution

• become local agents to claim the agents land ; operate under the colonial system under a symbiotic relationship

• colonialism involves a lot of raw materials

• the kind of massive influx from Europe near the end of the 19th century means overpopulation issue

• overseas competition between European states and export it

• hierarchical

• nomadic thesis; incorrect, saying that indigenous peoples were nomadic, indigenous peoples are not suited to modernity because they are connected to the land, don’t know how to use the land properly, land has to be cleared by indigenous peoples so they can be modernized

• extinction thesis; indigenous peoples biologically can’t survive in the post-modern world because they cant withstand diseases that europeans bring with them

• virgin soil hypothesis; north America and indigenous people are living in a bubble by themselves and because of their innate physical weakness, they naturally fell quickly by eurpean diseases

• black legend; strange diseases that consumed them like rotten sheep, rested on the idea that as a race, indigenous people were inferior and poor

• moral and cultural failure; their way of life is inferior

• david s. jones

• removal from the land , removal from food sources, repeated exposure to settlers who put them in this situation

• everybody in north America is an immigrant

Canadian indian residential schools

• system where children are not educated in based schools

• project is understood to be as an exercise of genocide through forced assimilation

• indigenous rebellion

• state schools ran by us government were better than Canada

• step in to save ?

• genocide of bison is part of the genocide of indigenous peoples ; cuts off their food source

• bovine tuberculosis; scioffula

feb. 14

whoop-up trade

• royal proclamation 1763

• const. act (1867 )

• indian act (1876)

chanadian indian residential schools

• crown dominion over indians and indial land

• upper and lower Canada becoming quebec

• in 1857, the passing gradual civilization act

• control over the policy with respect to indian lands

• updated reiteration of the 1867 indian act

• to be able to deal with the Canadian state, reservation systems have been created, take indigenous peoples and turn them into Canadians

• very strong understanding that indigenous peoples left to heir own devices; education of young children is the way to overcome

• movement to create industrial schools; residential schools and sdet up to educate African American boys, vocational training

• recognition to turn indigenous peoples into Americans in a more secularized version

• federal government thinks it has a problem they need to fix

• avoid indian wars

• no standing military force

• MA Mcrae

• need assistance to be chained to Canadians

• riel rebellion 1867 - 1870

• welcome and facilitate the settlement of the country but embrace it as they want and render its government easy and not expensive; federal government wants to expand west but don’t want it to be a problem that they spend lot of money

• set up schools so they enforce the settler expansion

• report on indian school and halfbreeds

• it is not going to be possible or desirable for a modern education provided to indigenous children on reserve

• conversion to Christianity

• funding causes to be dire; most schools were funded at this level adjusted for inflation

• $1.09 perchild per year; creates an incentive for churches for funding

• federal funding formula ensures that they are able to run but underfunded and schools become an overcrowded place

• enforcement; wanted education fro their children

• focused on children’s education

• daven report; rejects this idea

• adult population are hopelessly non-modern

• what women were learning ; good western mothers, how to run your household

• teachers felt that they were vulnerable and surrounded

• nuns took language by mouth; wash mouth with soap

• assimilation project

outcomes

• by the end of the 2nd worlwar, there was a move towards decommissioning schools

• children are getting exposed to disease

• Canada becomes one of the un founding members; central documents, un declaration on human rights

• continuing to run these schools is not consistent with the un declaration

• 1st decommissioned residential school

• assimilation by having indigenous people going to white schools

feb. 26

ottoman empire

• anyone who isnt a muslim is a mehmet

• three tier system; muslim subjects regardless of where they were located

• islam is the recognized religious ffliation

• christians are people of the book; believed in the same abrahamic god

background conditions domesti

• one of their male children would be handed over to the sultan;s military

• converted to islam and would spend their lives as young people training to be soldiers

• internal forces inside the sultanate who wants to see the empire modernized

• found help in the main european christian powers

• decided that russia would be given responsibility for the christian populations

• get rid of the millet system

• uniified set of rules about economic activities

• right of subjects become the same

• repeated wars;

• 1821-28; remnant of the empire; crowning achievement of the ottoman

• taking the dissitine empire

• 1839 - can no longer risk the christian population have equal treatment to themselves

• inevitably turn against the empire themselves

• if the christians all want to have independence , they would take all of them and leave nothing

march 3

death by killing and deportation

• divert the colony and almost massacre everyone

• forcibly remove women and children

• deportees; left a whole process on others on the hands of the state

• take in children forcibly and be raised in new families

• starvation was a deliberate choice

• use deportation process as one of the primary methods of destruction

resistance

• gets a replacement

• a new governor from Istanbul is sent; takes all the people

• aleppo; governor also the mayor of ankara

• gov. erzurum, trabzon, der zor

• refused the deportation order and was replaced

• musa dagh

• hope that the naval forces would see their bonfire and come in and investigate

• Austrian journalist hears about the case; writes a fictionalized version of the book

• 40 days at musa dagh; franz werfel

rescue

• haji khalil

• Islam had nothing to do in causing the genocide that happened

• turks that are not the problem or Islam

• it was a political set of actors

outcome

• they wanted to make it so that more than 10%

• large Armenian communities outside during the deportation

the nazi holocaust

background

• outflow of jewish population from the roman province of judea

• wasn’t an independent kingdom at that time

• when caesar comes to power, has the backing of the jewish king

• rewar

march 7

• antisocialist campaign , 1878 - 88

• anticatholic ‘kulturekampf’

• making it so that socialist groups cant form

• criminal proceedings to scoop up socialists to destroy the movement

• jews who were outsuides now look like they were on the inside

• societal fragmentation

• split by region and religion

• not all the germans love each other

• the plan for the holocaust wasnt decided until the summer

• marginalization of jews that everyone forgot about

• first kind of indicator that the war has gone on way longer

• good at strategy; rathmau??

• raioning

• jewish men are overrepresented

• treaty was and embarrassment

• inflation isn’t the problem; it’s the lack of jobs

march 12

• other forms of legal separation

• by the end of 1930s, most germans did see jews as completely foreign and alien

world war 2 segregation

• as the historian retired,u cant understand the holocaust unless u understand the aims of the east

• hitler infamous speech; calls himself a prophet

• September 1 of 1930; changes the words in a way that shows a genocidal intent

• extermination of the aryan race; and the jewish race

• replicate the an colonial experience

• be enslaved with slave labour

ghettos in nazi occupied Europe

• warsaw ghetto

• vilnuis

• todt

• when the Warsaw ghetto was constructed, it was in 1939

• all jews who lived I the city

• need more resources or need more ghettos

• Madagascar plan

segregation to genocide

• commissar order

• society red army is ready eventually

• the first shooting actions start under the commissar order

• the shooting actions; chelmo 1941

process of destruction

• 4 army groups that invade in regions