Got Genocide? You may be a victim of US foreign policy

It’s time for the United States to examine how its own foreign policy promotes genocide, and take the actions necessary to curb it.

America, Genocide, and the “National Interest”
By Jeff Bachman, 9 December, 2013.

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Genocide Convention, the groundbreaking United Nations document that declared genocide to be an international crime.

The anniversary provides an ideal opportunity to look at the United States’ record in preventing genocide around the world. That record is dismal.

Why?

The most frequent explanations for America’s failure to prevent genocide concern a lack of national interest or political will. Both have indeed been influential. But a more honest account would acknowledge the United States’ own complicity in backing genocidal regimes.

It’s time for the United States to examine how its own foreign policy promotes genocide, and take the actions necessary to curb it. These include making clear assessments of when genocide is occurring or about to occur — regardless of whether it is perpetrated by its friends or foes — and granting jurisdiction to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the body designated by the resolution to hear “disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application, or fulfillment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide.”

A Convention against Genocide

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution — formally called the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide — in 1948, and the law entered into force in 1951.

The convention defines genocide as actions taken with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” In contrast to the designation of “crimes against humanity,” which were at that time understood to happen only during war, the convention broke new ground in noting that genocide can also occur in peacetime — thus opening a broader set of acts of violence to international condemnation. The convention identified genocide as a crime under international law, outlined the specific criminal acts that constituted it, and called for cooperation among ratifying nations to stop it.

Eventually, cases for the Genocide Convention came to be tried before the ICJ in The Hague, Netherlands.

The United States became a signatory to this convention in 1948, but resisted passing the legislation to implement it until 1988. Moreover, the United States is one of only five parties to the Genocide Convention that refuse to recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ. Although it had signed on 40 years earlier, the United States withdrew its agreement to compulsory jurisdiction by the ICJ in 1986, when Nicaragua brought a case against the United States for sponsoring an insurrection against the Nicaraguan government. The United States’ lack of participation in the full authority of the ICJ directly diminishes the court’s ability to hold states accountable for violations of international laws and norms, and diminishes the world’s ability to prevent genocide.

National Interest and Political Will

Two main reasons have been given for the United States’ failure to prevent genocide: national interest and political will.

Although awash in lofty rhetoric about human rights and democracy, the United States often pursues what it sees as its own best interest. Frequently this amounts to a calculation based on its relations with individual members of the international community: When enemy states commit massacres, the United States responds with condemnation, sanctions, and possibly military intervention. In contrast, when the perpetrator of serious human rights violations is a U.S. client state, the United States remains silent — or, at most, issues an occasional rhetorical condemnation.

The “political will” narrative suggests that the country’s heart is in the right place but that policymakers are prevented by domestic political considerations from taking the necessary action to stop genocide. In their 2008 report on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Genocide Convention, “Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers,” Madeleine Albright and William Cohen made this argument forcefully, repeatedly calling for improved leadership and political will. …more