Spotlight on Human Rights, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity
The concept of Universal Human Rights has been closely linked to genocide prevention since the UN Declaration on 10th December 1948. The events of the Second World War, specifically the extermination of almost 17 million people during the Holocaust, pushed governments worldwide to make a concerted effort to foster international peace and prevent conflict, which resulted in the establishment of the United Nations in 1945.
There is an inherent overlap between human rights violations and mass atrocity crimes. The right to life, for example, enshrined in the Universal Declaration for Human Rights and the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights, is frequently violated in situations of genocide and crimes against humanity. Likewise, the International Criminal Court prosecutes rape and sexual violence as both a crime against humanity and an act of genocide. Where human rights violations are widespread or systematic in nature, they may constitute crimes against humanity. Mass detentions, torture, and enforced disappearances in Syria are one such example. Persecution – described by Dr Melanie O’Brien, lawyer and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, as ‘an extreme form of discrimination’ – is also itself a crime against humanity.
Human rights protection, therefore, underscores UN Member States’ responsibility to protect populations and prevent mass atrocity crimes. Paragraph 138 of the 2005 World Summit outcome document - in which the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle was first adopted - states that ‘[e]ach individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means.’
Effective prevention of mass atrocities requires an understanding of early warning signs and underlying grievances as well as exacerbating risk factors that might contribute to the commission of these crimes. Atrocity crimes are not isolated or spontaneous events, but processes associated with histories of persecution, discrimination and human rights violations. For example, Rohingya communities in Myanmar suffered systematic human rights violations – many since the 1970s - which ultimately created a permissive environment for widespread discrimination, rampant hate speech by prominent religious actors, inter-communal violence and targeting by the security forces. These combined factors laid the ground for the 2017 clearance operations in Rakhine state, which lead to accusations of genocide, amid reports that soldiers murdered and raped civilians en masse. Addressing patterns of human rights violations that constitute the risk of genocide, therefore is crucial for more effective prevention.
Recognising human rights abuses as risk factors to atrocity crimes
Co-founding president of Genocide Watch, Dr. Gregory Stanton, has developed a conceptual model for analysing the events and processes that lead to genocide, and for determining preventive measures. The model defines ten stages of genocide, which might occur simultaneously. The first four stages: classification, symbolisation discrimination and dehumanisation, highlight the othering of human groups, micro-aggressions, identity-based persecution and right suppression as risk/identifying factors. In addition to the ten stages, understanding wider social and environmental conditions that exacerbate or influence these factors - such as economic precarity, resource scarcity, and feelings of insecurity - is vital.
In 2014, the UN developed a Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes, a guide for assessing the risk of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The framework highlights a ‘record of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law’ as a potential risk factor, with indicators including:
‘Past or present serious restrictions to or violations of international human rights law and humanitarian law, particularly if assuming an early pattern of conduct and if targeting protected groups, populations or individuals’;
‘Policy or practice of impunity for or tolerance of serious violations of international human rights law’;
·‘Inaction, reluctance or refusal to use all possible means to stop planned, predictable or ongoing serious violations of international human rights law’;
‘Continuation of support to groups accused of involvement in serious violations of international human rights law… or failure to condemn their actions’; and
‘Justification, biased accounts or denial of serious violations of international human rights law’.
Other relevant indicators, according to the Framework, include:
‘National legal framework that does not offer ample and effective protection, including through ratification and domestication of relevant international human rights and humanitarian law treaties’;
‘National institutions, particularly judicial, law enforcement and human rights institutions that lack sufficient resources, adequate representation or training’;
‘Lack of awareness of and training on international human rights and humanitarian law to military forces, irregular forces and non-state armed groups, or other relevant actors’; and
‘Limited cooperation of the state with international and regional human rights mechanisms.
The Framework was published after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the Human Rights up Front (HRuF) initiative in an effort to address the organisation’s ‘systemic failure’ to respond to human rights violations and prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity during the final months of a decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka which ended in 2009.
The UK must likewise address early prevention as the key way to discharge its R2P both at home, and abroad, for example by implementing training and identification of these risk factors – including wider environmental, political, and social conditions – that act as early warning signs, and are vital components of genocide prevention.
Written by Gillian McKay (ECR2P, Uni. of Leeds - @GillsMcKay | ss19gcm@leeds.ac.uk) and Dr. Natalia Garcia Bonet (Uni. of Kent - @Tamina84).