{"id":19280,"date":"2013-12-10T14:31:37","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T21:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19280"},"modified":"2013-12-10T14:31:37","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T21:31:37","slug":"got-genocide-you-may-be-a-victim-of-us-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19280","title":{"rendered":"Got Genocide? You may be a victim of US foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time for the United States to examine how its own foreign policy promotes genocide, and take the actions necessary to curb it.<\/em><\/p>\n

America, Genocide, and the \u201cNational Interest\u201d<\/strong>
\nBy Jeff Bachman, 9 December, 2013.<\/p>\n

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Genocide Convention, the groundbreaking United Nations document that declared genocide to be an international crime.<\/p>\n

The anniversary provides an ideal opportunity to look at the United States\u2019 record in preventing genocide around the world. That record is dismal.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most frequent explanations for America\u2019s 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\u2019 own complicity in backing genocidal regimes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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 \u2014 regardless of whether it is perpetrated by its friends or foes \u2014 and granting jurisdiction to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the body designated by the resolution to hear \u201cdisputes 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Convention against Genocide<\/p>\n

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution \u2014 formally called the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide \u2014 in 1948, and the law entered into force in 1951.<\/p>\n

The convention defines genocide as actions taken with the \u201cintent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.\u201d In contrast to the designation of \u201ccrimes against humanity,\u201d 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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

Eventually, cases for the Genocide Convention came to be tried before the ICJ in The Hague, Netherlands.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 lack of participation in the full authority of the ICJ directly diminishes the court\u2019s ability to hold states accountable for violations of international laws and norms, and diminishes the world\u2019s ability to prevent genocide.<\/p>\n

National Interest and Political Will<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two main reasons have been given for the United States\u2019 failure to prevent genocide: national interest and political will.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 or, at most, issues an occasional rhetorical condemnation.<\/p>\n

The \u201cpolitical will\u201d narrative suggests that the country\u2019s 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, \u201cPreventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers,\u201d Madeleine Albright and William Cohen made this argument forcefully, repeatedly calling for improved leadership and political will. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 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 \u201cNational Interest\u201d 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 more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[507],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19280"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19281,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19280\/revisions\/19281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}