Anti-Genocide: Building an American Movement to Prevent Genocide (review)

Genocide has emerged as one of the most important problems facing the international community. In recent years, in places such as Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, and East Timor, the world has watched helplessly and passively while massacres and other gross human rights violations have been perpetrated with relative impunity. Scholars are increasingly working to outline the causes and dynamics of genocide and to bridge the gap between scholarship and policy. One important component of this process involves the attempt to create an effective method to identify and prevent these crimes. Anti-Genocide: Building an American Movement to Prevent Genocide falls squarely within this genre. Herbert Hirsch has created an original and insightful volume that is a must read for anyone truly interested in understanding what must be done in order to end genocide. As Hirsch makes clear, while many politicians, activists, and researchers speak the language of human rights and genocide prevention, relatively little has been accomplished. His book is an attempt to confront the problem of "how to change that rhetoric into realistic policy of preventing genocide" (pp. 110-11).

The book is logically organized and the chapters flow well from one to the next, allowing the reader easy access to the contents. Because Hirsch did not intend to write an overview of the field of genocide studies, the introduction quickly and competently summarizes the history of the term genocide as well as the difficulties in defining it, the UN genocide convention and its weaknesses, and the problematic ratification of the UN genocide convention by the United States.

The first section provides a solid discussion of the nature of political movements. Using the social unrest and the antiwar movement of the 1960s as examples, Hirsch relies on his skills as a political scientist to illustrate that broadly supported popular movements can dramatically affect governmental policies and popular consciousness. Recent American history highlights the very real possibility of significant social and political change, which is a necessary component of any antigenocide program. However, Hirsch is no idealist. He recognizes that such change happens rarely. Much more common are marginal changes that advance a cause incrementally. As Hirsch points out, "most advocates of a movement to prevent or stop genocide forget that the vast majority of people probably fear change more than they wish to see genocide halted" (p. 37).

Yet Americans are also conversant in the language and principles of human rights. Hirsch shows that while the public is in fact often concerned about genocide in foreign places, policy makers still use supposed public apathy as a vehicle to defer action or policy decisions. Hirsch, however, feels that popular attitudes offer some hope. If the American public's concern about human rights issues worldwide can be successfully mobilized, it might provide the impetus necessary for policy makers to intervene in genocide.

The second section of the book reviews what the author sees as the failure of the United States to deal with genocide. Hirsch argues that the administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton worked against humanitarian interventions even while rhetorically committing their administrations to combating human rights abuses. He asserts that the hypocrisy of the U.S. government can be seen most clearly in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. In these examples, the United States acted selectively and sporadically. When the United States did intervene, as in Bosnia, it was only after a tremendous amount of delay and obfuscation.

The last section of the book discusses the changes needed and the obstacles that might impede them. Hirsch suggests several short- and long-term strategies to prevent genocide, including a genocide early warning system, the unification of the laws of war with the UN genocide convention, and mechanisms to capture and punish the perpetrators of genocide. Hirsch ably synthesizes previously developed concepts and mechanisms with new ideas and presents a far more nuanced and pragmatic approach to genocide prevention than is found in other more simplistic prescriptions.

But perhaps the greatest contribution of this...