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101. Holocaust Denial before the European Court of Human Rights: Evolution of an Exceptional Regime

Author:
Paolo Lobba
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Litigation concerning domestic restrictions on Holocaust denial has produced a 30-year-long jurisprudence of the European Court and European Commission of Human Rights. In spite of solemnly declared principles on free speech, the Strasbourg organs have progressively developed an exceptional regime in this regard based on the 'abuse clause' envisaged under Article 17. Had this detrimental treatment remained confined to its original sphere, it could have perhaps been considered as a negligible issue. However, the scope of the abuse clause was extended to encompass a growing class of utterances, including the denial of historical facts other than the Nazi genocide. This piece begins by examining the Strasbourg case law on Holocaust denial, with a view to enucleating the effects, scope and conditions of applicability of the special regime based upon Article 17. Once the shortcomings implied by this detrimental discipline have been exposed, it shall be argued that all expressions should be dealt with under the ordinary necessity test, in which the abuse clause ought to operate as an interpretative principle. In the alternative, and as a minimum, the Court should pay due regard to the political and social context of the country where restrictions on free speech were enforced, setting aside the uniquely harsh treatment reserved for Holocaust denial.
Topic:
Genocide and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe

102. Evelyne Schmid. Taking Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Seriously in International Criminal Law

Author:
Mara Tignino
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Evelyne Schmid’s new book, Taking Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Seriously in International Criminal Law, aims to provide a bridge between developing practice and existing knowledge. At the heart of her book lies the question of how, or to what extent, violations of ESCR are addressed in international criminal proceedings and transitional justice mechanisms. She criticizes the current marginalization of ESCR abuses in scholarship on international criminal law and bemoans the reality that ‘efforts to address the legacy of widespread human rights abuses display a bias towards civil and political rights’. While some have argued for an expansion of international criminal law to account more directly for violations of ESCR, Schmid claims such an expansion is unnecessary; in her view, such violations already fall within the scope of international crimes.
Topic:
Genocide, Human Rights, International Law, United Nations, War Crimes, Courts, and Transitional Justice
Political Geography:
Europe, North Korea, Cambodia, United Nations, and Myanmar

103. Just Peace: Achieving Peace, Justice, and Development in Post-Conflict Africa

Author:
Dan Kuwali
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
The political realities of post-conflict situations present hard choices in the peacebuilding and reconstruction processes. Most post-conflict societies face the dilemma of how to deal with past atrocities, especially genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Where the perpetrators are the winners of the war or elections, victors’ justice has usually been rendered against the vanquished. Yet, even where this is not the case, national judicial systems in most post-conflict societies cannot immediately handle wide- scale prosecutions for atrocities in accordance with international standards of due process, and, in cases where a political compromise has taken place, the question is usually whether to forego justice for the sake of peace. The answer is often to offer amnesty to the perpetrators of atrocities, effectively giving them impunity. This discussion will explore a victim-oriented approach toward resolving the peace and justice dilemma while promoting reconciliation and development in post-conflict settings. The starting point is the assertion that mass atrocities such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity can brook no impunity, although each conflict is sui generis, and legal concerns must be balanced with political reality in determining the appropriate reaction to past atrocities. Following the analysis is an outline of the steps that should be taken to eradicate the root causes of conflicts leading to mass atrocities in Africa.
Topic:
Genocide, War Crimes, Peace, and Justice
Political Geography:
Africa

104. Who Are Atrocity's "Real" Perpetrators, Who Its "True" Victims and Beneficiaries?

Author:
Mark Osiel
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Modern law's response to mass atrocities vacillates equivocally in how it understands thedramatis personae to these expansive tragedies, at once extraordinary and ubiquitous. Is there any principled order to this? If not, should we care?
Topic:
Genocide and Law
Political Geography:
Yugoslavia, Serbia, and Balkans

105. The Responsibility to Protect: Ensuring the Norm's Relevance After Libya, Côte d'Ivoire and Syria

Author:
Maissaa Almustafa, Evan Cinq-Mars, and Matthew Redding
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
Since its endorsement in 2005, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has become central to how the global community responds to genocide and mass atrocities. The norm presently faces the “risk of relevance” as a result of the interventions in Libya and Côte d'Ivoire and the deadlock over the situation in Syria. The recommendations in this brief will strengthen preventive capacities, maximize the protection afforded to civilians and ensure the norm's future relevance.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Genocide, Human Rights, Armed Struggle, Regime Change, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Africa and Arabia

106. Justice on trial in Guatemala: The Ríos Montt Case

Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Within ten days, Guatemalan courts made and unmade legal history. The trial and conviction of former dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt on 10 May 2013 for genocide and other human rights violations was an extraordinary achievement for a justice system that must grapple simultaneously with the legacy of a vicious internal conflict and the contemporary scourges of gang violence, corruption and illegal drug trafficking. Victims had barely finished celebrating, however, when the Constitutional Court annulled the verdict in a confusing decision that raised questions of outside interference. Widespread impunity for past and present violence continues to have a corrosive effect on the country's democracy. Failure to renew the trial for mass atrocities against Ríos Montt and pursue justice for the victims of violent crime would undermine its halting progress toward rule of law, including a strong independent judiciary.
Topic:
Corruption, Crime, Genocide, Human Rights, Narcotics Trafficking, and Law
Political Geography:
Latin America and Guatemala

107. Handbook on the Ratification and Implementation of the Kampala Amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
Handbook is based on a workshop on the ratification and implementation of the Kampala amendments on the Crime of Aggression that took place at New York University on 25 June 2012. The workshop was co-hosted by the Permanent Mission of the Principality of Liechtenstein to the United Nations and the Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression (recently affiliated with Middlesex University School of Law, London), with the support of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton University (LISD). The handbook benefited further from the Colloquium «From Rome to Kampala – the first two amendments to the Rome Statute,» organized by the Belgian Interministerial Commission for Humanitarian Law on 5 June 2012 in Brussels. Part II of the handbook was drafted with the kind assistance of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Topic:
Crime, Genocide, Human Rights, International Law, Treaties and Agreements, and War
Political Geography:
New York, United Nations, and Brussels

108. Strengthening Transitional Justice in Bosnia: Regional Possibilities and Parallel Narratives

Author:
Dejan Guzina and Branka Marijan
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
In the media, news commentators continue to refer to Srebrenica as a lesson that should never be repeated again. Indeed, such “never again” statements have re-emerged in light of current events unfolding in Syria, as the international community debates what type of intervention should be used to stop further violence. The media have gone so far as to call the Syrian regime's possible use of chemical weapons against its population a “Srebrenica moment” — that is, a moment when moral outrage of civilian deaths leads to a push for military intervention (Lerman and Lakshmanan 2013). While little action has materialized in the case of Syria, the Srebrenican “never again” lesson is also far from being either agreed upon or learned from in Bosnia itself.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Crime, Genocide, Human Rights, and War
Political Geography:
Europe, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Yugoslavia, Balkans, and Syria

109. Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century

Author:
Perparim Gutaj
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
PAUL MOJZES is a well-informed and eminent historian of religion with a profound interest in the study of ethno-religion as the rationale for genocide. In this book, Mojzes is set to examine the Balkan genocides and ethnic cleansing during the troublesome twentieth century. He offers his readers an excellent, comprehensive and systematic, narrative of the horrific events that dominated the first and last decades of the previous century. Balkan Genocides develops the argument of how Balkan nations frequently were immersed in genocides and ethnic cleansing, mainly due to the power shifts in the region and the concept of 'cycle of revenge.' The book covers the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), World War I, the Greek-Turkish Wars, World War II, the post- World War II ethnic cleansing and genocides, and the Yugoslav Wars of disintegration during the 1990s.
Topic:
Genocide and War
Political Geography:
Turkey

110. Strengthening Transitional Justice in Bosnia: Regional Possibilities and Parallel Narratives

Author:
Dejan Guzina and Branka Marijan
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
In the media, news commentators continue to refer to Srebrenica as a lesson that should never be repeated again. Indeed, such “never again” statements have re-emerged in light of current events unfolding in Syria, as the international community debates what type of intervention should be used to stop further violence. The media have gone so far as to call the Syrian regime's possible use of chemical weapons against its population a “Srebrenica moment” — that is, a moment when moral outrage of civilian deaths leads to a push for military intervention (Lerman and Lakshmanan 2013). While little action has materialized in the case of Syria, the Srebrenican “never again” lesson is also far from being either agreed upon or learned from in Bosnia itself.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Crime, Genocide, International Law, Regional Cooperation, War, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:
Bosnia, Balkans, and Syria