Event: Litigating Genocides

On May 18, 2026, a speech and panel discussion will be held on "Litigating Genocides," in Venice and on streaming. Details are here.

Lecture: Schabas on "A refresh of the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice?"

On April 23, 2026, William Schabas (Middlesex Univ.) will deliver the 2026 Theo van Boven Lecture at the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights. The topic is: "A refresh of the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice?" Details are here.

Call for Contributions: Genocide and the Ocean: Law, History, and Genocidal Realities Beyond Border and Beneath Waves

A call for contributions has been issued by Vicky Kapogianni (Univ. of Reading - Law) and Eric Loefflad (Univ. of Kent - Law) for an edited collection on "Genocide and the Ocean: Law, History, and Genocidal Realities Beyond Border and Beneath Waves." The call is here.

Becker: Crisis in Gaza: South Africa v Israel at the International Court of Justice (or the Unbearable Lightness of Provisional Measures)

Michael A. Becker (Trinity College Dublin - Law) has posted Crisis in Gaza: South Africa v Israel at the International Court of Justice (or the Unbearable Lightness of Provisional Measures) (Melbourne Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In the early hours of 7 October 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip launched a set of attacks across southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and abducting 252 people to be held as hostages. Israel unleashed an overwhelming military response, with grave humanitarian consequences for the Palestinian population of Gaza. On 29 December 2023, South Africa initiated proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging violations of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide based on Israel's response to the 7 October attacks. This article examines South Africa's litigation of the Gaza conflict through its use of the provisional measures procedure at the ICJ. Part I provides an overview of the humanitarian crisis and the polarizing effect of Israel's military operation in Gaza. Part II examines South Africa's four attempts to obtain provisional measures and the Court's decision to indicate such measures on three occasions within a four-month period. Part III considers the relative ineffectiveness of the provisional measures-their 'unbearable lightness' in a situation of extreme gravity and examines doctrinal issues that emerged along the way, including the nature of the Court's 'plausibility' test at the provisional measure stage and the procedure for seeking additional or modified measures. Part IV concludes by considering challenges that lay ahead in the ICJ case-for the parties, for the Court, and for the Palestinians of Gaza.

Call for Papers: Genocide and the Ocean: Conceptualising their Relationship

A call for papers has been issued for a workshop on "Genocide and the Ocean: Conceptualising their Relationship," to take place March 20, 2024, at the University of Kent, Canterbury. The call is here.

Beham: Atrocity Labelling: From Crimes Against Humanity to Genocide Studies

Markus P. Beham (Univ. of Passau - Law) has published Atrocity Labelling: From Crimes Against Humanity to Genocide Studies (Hart Publishing 2022). Here's the abstract:

Atrocity. Genocide. War crime. Crime Against Humanity. Such atrocity labels have been popularized among international lawmakers but with little insight offered into how and when these terms are applied and to what effect. What constitutes an event to be termed a genocide or war crime and what role does this play in the application of legal proceedings?

Markus P. Beham, through an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, unpicks these terms to uncover their historical genesis and their implications for international criminal law initiatives concerned with atrocity. The book uniquely compares four specific case studies: Belgian colonial exploitation of the Congo, atrocities committed against the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, the Armenian genocide and the man-made Ukrainian famine of the 1930s. Encompassing international law, legal history, and discourse analysis, the concept of 'atrocity labelling' is used to capture the meaning underlying the work of international lawyers and prosecutors, historians and sociologists, agenda setters and policy makers.

Ventura & Heffes: ‘Genocide’ Against Political Groups in Latin America in light of the Travaux Préparatoires of the Genocide Convention (1948): The Case of Argentina

Manuel J. Ventura & Ezequiel Heffes have posted ‘Genocide’ Against Political Groups in Latin America in light of the Travaux Préparatoires of the Genocide Convention (1948): The Case of Argentina (in Göttingen Handbook for Latin American Law, Kai Ambos & José Martinez eds, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter examines the genocide findings made by some Argentinian courts as a result of the widespread and severe human rights violations that occurred during the military dictatorship of 1976-1983. Based predominantly on a narrow selection of the travaux préparatoires and other documents predating the Genocide Convention (1948), as well as a decision from Spain’s Audiencia Nacional, Argentinian judges have held that the physical destruction of ‘political groups’ as such or effectively as a part of a national group falls within the definition of genocide as included in said Convention. This chapter reviews the travaux préparatoires of the Genocide Convention (1948) relevant to the protected groups and shows that the drafters did not envisage genocide against political groups directly or indirectly as part of a national group. Accordingly, these Argentinian cases do not withstand close academic scrutiny.

Call for Papers: Limits of Legal Responses to Genocide and Mass Atrocity

The Human Rights Center of the University of Dayton has issued a call for papers for a workshop on "Limits of Legal Responses to Genocide and Mass Atrocity." The call is here.

Ohlin: #Genocide: Atrocity as Pretext and Disinformation

Jens David Ohlin (Cornell Univ. - Law) has posted #Genocide: Atrocity as Pretext and Disinformation (Virginia Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This Article addresses the problem of false accusations of genocide. In the past, scholars and lawyers have fretted about the pernicious impact of genocide denial, but false accusations represent the opposite side of the disinformation coin. Instead of deny-ing the existence of a real genocide (as in Holocaust denial), the new accusations falsely accuse a state of genocide when no such genocide occurred. For example, Russia accused Ukraine of genocide against Russian-speaking civilians in Eastern Ukraine and then used that false accusation as a pretext for launching a military invasion of Ukraine. This Article investigates whether international law can, or should, address genocidal accusations that are used as false pretext and disinformation. The answer is a qualified yes, because such accusations are implicitly prohibited by the Genocide Convention and possibly by a broader requirement of good faith and honesty that applies in all international relations.

By way of background, Part I examines international law’s approach to disinformation and shows how the major frameworks—sovereignty, self-determination, and human rights—fail to adequately regulate or capture the distinctive harm of false accusations of genocide. Part II then looks at the specific role that the Genocide Convention might play in prohibiting false accusations and how the International Court of Justice might assert jurisdiction over such a dispute. In that analysis, the Article finds the seeds of a larger “axiomatic” principle under general international law that could prohibit false accusations leveled against other states. Part III then addresses the connection between genocidal accusations and the military campaigns that are launched under their banner. Part III concludes that rather than seeing this use of genocide as the natural outgrowth of the late-1990s debates over humanitarian intervention, we should instead see them as a distinct contemporary phenomenon: hybrid warfare and the use of disinformation to support territorial conquest. The reason for this reframing is that prior debates involved the use of real genocides as a justification for intervention, while the current moment involves wholly fictitious inventions of genocide. Finally, Part IV explores how Russia has used its genocidal accusation as a pretext to wage its own genocidal campaign against Ukraine—the ultimate endgame of a perverse form of disinformation that threatens the international legal order in ways that go beyond the prohibition on the use of force.

Islam: The Gambia v. Myanmar: An Analysis of the ICJ’s Decision on Jurisdiction under the Genocide Convention.

Md. Rizwanul Islam (North South Univ. - Law) has posted an ASIL Insight on The Gambia v. Myanmar: An Analysis of the ICJ’s Decision on Jurisdiction under the Genocide Convention.

Longobardo: Legal Perspectives on the Role of the Notion of «Denazification» in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine under Jus contra Bellum and Jus in Bello

Marco Longobardo (Univ. of Westminster) has posted Legal Perspectives on the Role of the Notion of «Denazification» in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine under Jus contra Bellum and Jus in Bello (Revue Belge de Droit International, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article explores the role of the notion of «denazification» in the international legal discourse pertaining to jus contra bellum and jus in bello in relation to the 2022 Russian aggression against Ukraine. Although the use of this notion has potential legal affects to the application of international law, in the instant case, the denazification argument is insufficient to render the Russian invasion a lawful military operation. To reach this conclusion, the article offers a brief outline of the references to denazification in the Russian legal discourse pertaining to the invasion of Ukraine. Then, the article explores its relevance for jus contra bellum in relation to genocide prevention and struggle against racist regimes. Finally, the article analyses the potential impact of denazification discourse on jus in bello, with specific references to the extent to which it can be used to justify the alteration of the law in force in an occupied territory beyond what it is normally allowed by the law of occupation.

Cet article explore le rôle de la notion de «dénazification» dans le discours juridique international relatif au jus contra bellum et au jus in bello en ce qui concerne l’agression russe de 2022 contre l’Ukraine. Bien que l’utilisation de cette notion ait des effets juridiques potentiels sur l’application du droit international, en l’espèce, l’argument de la dénazification est insuffisant pour faire de l’invasion russe une opération militaire licite. Pour parvenir à cette conclusion, l’article propose un bref aperçu des références à la dénazification dans le discours juridique russe relatif à l'invasion de l’Ukraine. Ensuite, l’article explore sa pertinence pour le jus contra bellum en ce qui concerne la prévention du génocide et la lutte contre les régimes racistes. Enfin, l’article analyse l’impact potentiel du discours de dénazification sur le jus in bello, avec des références spécifiques à la mesure dans laquelle il peut être utilisé pour justifier la modification de la loi en vigueur dans un territoire occupé au-delà de ce qui est normalement autorisé par le droit d’occupation.

Uraz: Classifying Genocide in International Law: The Substantiality Requirement

Onur Uraz (Univ. of Hacettepe - Law) has published Classifying Genocide in International Law: The Substantiality Requirement (Routledge 2022). Here's the abstract:

This book offers an in-depth examination into genocide law by focusing on one of the lesser examined, yet practically significant, issues: the ‘substantiality requirement’. This refers to the requirement in international law that intended destruction should be directed towards a ‘substantial’ part of a protected group in order for an atrocity to qualify as genocide. This comprehensive and detailed study draws connections between different judicial approaches to ‘substantiality’ and the varying theoretical presumptions about the constitutive concepts of the crime. This prima facia doctrinal problem is used as a springboard to scrutinise the broader theoretical problems underlying the legal conceptualisation of genocide.

The book systematically explores how the individualistic and collectivistic conceptions of the crime have been able to co-exist in case law and how the different approaches to assessing substantiality have played a backdoor role between these two conceptions. The work demonstrates that these two philosophical standpoints are far from effectively representing the reality of the protected groups and fully explaining the harm inherent to group destruction. The book revisits the recent philosophical and sociological studies on the crime and, considering ideas from the emerging ‘relational approaches to genocide’, offers a third way to understand the existing legal representation of the crime and, consequently, the idea of ‘substantiality’. It demonstrates the practical significance of its theoretical debates and applies its novel perspective through a case study on South Sudan.

Hoffmann: The Stigma of Genocide and the Denial of Communist Crimes

Tamás Hoffmann (Corvinus Univ. of Budapest) has posted The Stigma of Genocide and the Denial of Communist Crimes (in The Crime of Genocide Now and Then: Evolution of a Crime, Pavel Šturma & Milan Lipovský eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Genocide is generally understood as the “crime of crimes”, the most serious international offence that "shocks the conscience of mankind". Even though its narrow legal construction only allows for the categorizing very specific atrocities as genocide, the perceived gravity creates a special stigma that paradoxically might be seen to reduce the seriousness of other crimes in comparison. This has led to various attempts to bridge the schism between genocide and other international crimes in legal and social science scholarship and in domestic law. Some post-communist countries introduced equal legal sanctions for the denial of the Holocaust - the par excellence genocide - and communist crimes, which on many occasions do not even reach the level of international crimes. My chapter focuses on this phenomenon and aims to demonstrate that the desire to symbolically express the seriousness of communist crimes by putting them on an equal footing with the Holocaust threatens to simultaneously inflate the gravity of communist crimes and decrease the perceived seriousness of the Holocaust.

Moses: The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression

A. Dirk Moses (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill - History) has published The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression (Cambridge Univ. Press 2021). Here's the abstract:

Genocide is not only a problem of mass death, but also of how, as a relatively new idea and law, it organizes and distorts thinking about civilian destruction. Taking the normative perspective of civilian immunity from military attack, A. Dirk Moses argues that the implicit hierarchy of international criminal law, atop which sits genocide as the 'crime of crimes', blinds us to other types of humanly caused civilian death, like bombing cities, and the 'collateral damage' of missile and drone strikes. Talk of genocide, then, can function ideologically to detract from systematic violence against civilians perpetrated by governments of all types. The Problems of Genocide contends that this violence is the consequence of 'permanent security' imperatives: the striving of states, and armed groups seeking to found states, to make themselves invulnerable to threats.

Mulaj: Postgenocide: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Effects of Genocide

Klejda Mulaj (Univ. of Exeter - Politics) has published Postgenocide: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Effects of Genocide (Oxford Univ. Press 2021). Here's the abstract:

This volume introduces 'postgenocide' as a novel approach to study genocide and its effects after mass killing has ended. It investigates how the material violence of genocide translates into contests over memory, remembrance, and laws, and the re-imagining of political community. Contributions come from academics across a broad range of disciplines, including law, political science, sociology, and ethnography.

Chapters in this volume explore the various permutations of genocide harms, and scrutinise the efficacy of genocide laws and the prospects for their enforcement. Others engage with socio-political responses to genocide, including efforts to reconciliation, as well as genocide's impacts on victims' communities. Contributions examine the reconstruction of genocide narratives in the display of victims' objects in museums, galleries, and archives.This book brings together cutting edge research from a variety of disciplines, to address formerly overlooked themes and cases, exploring what a diversity of perspectives can bring to bear on genocide scholarship as a whole.

Hoffmann: The Crime of Genocide in its (Nearly) Infinite Domestic Variety

Tamás Hoffmann (Corvinus Univ. of Budapest; Hungarian Academy of Sciences) has posted The Crime of Genocide in its (Nearly) Infinite Domestic Variety (in The Concept of Genocide in International Criminal Law - Developments after Lemkin, Marco Odello & Piotr Łubiński eds., 2020). Here's the abstract:

Genocide is the "crime of crimes", whose legal definition remained unchanged on the international plane since the adoption of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Hitherto it has been assumed that with some minor modifications domestic definitions of the crime of genocide mirror the internationally accepted definition. However, after conducting for the first time a comprehensive review of the domestic criminal laws of 196 countries (all 193 UN Member States and the Holy See, Kosovo, and Palestine) and the Special Administrative Region of Macao, this article found that the differences are actually much more significant than hitherto assumed, since 100 countries and the Special Administrative Region of Macao have opted to change – through their national implementations – at least some aspects of the internationally-recognized definition of genocide, often significantly expanding or limiting the scope of application of the crime.

This chapter classifies these changes, proposes some potential explanations why so many countries opted to stray from the international definition and draws some preliminary conclusions of their potential ramifications.

Odello & Łubiński: The Concept of Genocide in International Criminal Law: Developments after Lemkin

Marco Odello (Aberystwyth Univ. - Law) & Piotr Łubiński (Pedagogical Univ., Krakow - Institute of Security and Civic Education) have published The Concept of Genocide in International Criminal Law: Developments after Lemkin (Routledge 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This book presents a review of historical and emerging legal issues that concern the interpretation of the international crime of genocide. The Polish legal expert Raphael Lemkin formulated the concept of genocide during the Nazi occupation of Europe, and it was then incorporated into the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This volume looks at the issues that are raised both by the existing international law definition of genocide and by the possible developments that continue to emerge under international criminal law. The authors consider how the concept of genocide might be used in different contexts, and see whether the definition in the 1948 convention may need some revision, also in the light of the original ideas that were expressed by Lemkin. The book focuses on specific themes that allow the reader to understand some of the problems related to the legal definition of genocide, in the context of historical and recent developments.

Mundorff: A Cultural Interpretation of the Genocide Convention

Kurt Mundorff has published A Cultural Interpretation of the Genocide Convention (Routledge 2020). Here's the abstract:

This book critiques the dominant physical and biological interpretation of the Genocide Convention and argues that the idea of "culture" is central to properly understanding the crime of genocide.

Using Raphael Lemkin’s personal papers, archival materials from the State Department and the UN, as well as the mid-century secondary literature, it situates the convention in the longstanding debate between Enlightenment notions of universality and individualism, and Romantic notions of particularism and holism. The author conducts a thorough review of the treaty and its preparatory work to show that the drafters brought strong culturalist ideas to the debate and that Lemkin’s ideas were held widely in the immediate postwar period. Reconstructing the mid-century conversation on genocide and situating it in the much broader mid-century discourse on justice and society he demonstrates that culture is not a distraction to be read out of the Genocide Convention; it is the very reason it exists.

This volume poses a forceful challenge to the materialist interpretation and calls into question decades of international case law. It will be of interest to scholars of genocide, human rights, international law, the history of international law and human rights, and treaty interpretation.

Rist: What Does the ICJ Decision on The Gambia v. Myanmar Mean?

D. Wes Rist (American Society of International Law) has posted an ASIL Insight on What Does the ICJ Decision on The Gambia v. Myanmar Mean?

Conference: Le crime de génocide à la lumière de la jurisprudence des juridictions pénales internationales et nationales : du Tribunal militaire international (TMI) de Nuremberg à la Cour pénale internationale (CPI)

Today and tomorrow, November 7-8, 2019, a conference on "Le crime de génocide à la lumière de la jurisprudence des juridictions pénales internationales et nationales : du Tribunal militaire international (TMI) de Nuremberg à la Cour pénale internationale (CPI)" will take place at Université Catholique de Lyon. The program is here.