Prevention of Genocide
IJGR 14_2-3-11-SchabasF
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GROUP RIGHTS
International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 14 (2007) 379–397 www.brill.nl/ijgr INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON MINORITY AND
Preventing the ‘Odious Scourge’: The United Nations and the Prevention of Genocide
William A. Schabas*
1. Introduction The prevention of genocide has figured on the agenda of the United Nations virtually from the organisation’s very beginning. Resolution 96(I), adopted at the initial session of the General Assembly, pledged the organisation to prevent and punish genocide. It called for the preparation of a treaty on the subject. Two years later the General Assembly adopted the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,1 its very first human rights treaty. But the United Nations was unable to prevent genocide in Rwanda, in 1994. In reaction to this signal and devastating failure, the September 2005 Summit of Heads of State and Government pledged the United Nations to the prevention of genocide, invoking the ‘responsibility to protect’ vulnerable minorities. The scope of that obligation was further enhanced in February 2007, when the International Court of Justice condemned Serbia for failing to act to prevent the massacre of thousands of civilians at Srebrenica, in July 1995. Of course, the United Nations was literally forged in the crucible of perhaps the greatest genocide of all time, the intentional physical extermination of an influential minority based largely in Europe whose contribution over the centuries to science, literature, philosophy and the arts had been extraordinary and perhaps unique. Yet its founding instrument, the Charter of the United Nations, did not put the prevention of genocide or, for that matter, the promotion of human rights at the centre of its activities. In its December 2004 report, the High Level Panel observed that the preoccupation of the founders of the United Nations was
* Professor of Human
6/14/07
4:15 PM
Page 379
GROUP RIGHTS
International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 14 (2007) 379–397 www.brill.nl/ijgr INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON MINORITY AND
Preventing the ‘Odious Scourge’: The United Nations and the Prevention of Genocide
William A. Schabas*
1. Introduction The prevention of genocide has figured on the agenda of the United Nations virtually from the organisation’s very beginning. Resolution 96(I), adopted at the initial session of the General Assembly, pledged the organisation to prevent and punish genocide. It called for the preparation of a treaty on the subject. Two years later the General Assembly adopted the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,1 its very first human rights treaty. But the United Nations was unable to prevent genocide in Rwanda, in 1994. In reaction to this signal and devastating failure, the September 2005 Summit of Heads of State and Government pledged the United Nations to the prevention of genocide, invoking the ‘responsibility to protect’ vulnerable minorities. The scope of that obligation was further enhanced in February 2007, when the International Court of Justice condemned Serbia for failing to act to prevent the massacre of thousands of civilians at Srebrenica, in July 1995. Of course, the United Nations was literally forged in the crucible of perhaps the greatest genocide of all time, the intentional physical extermination of an influential minority based largely in Europe whose contribution over the centuries to science, literature, philosophy and the arts had been extraordinary and perhaps unique. Yet its founding instrument, the Charter of the United Nations, did not put the prevention of genocide or, for that matter, the promotion of human rights at the centre of its activities. In its December 2004 report, the High Level Panel observed that the preoccupation of the founders of the United Nations was
* Professor of Human