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Naming Horror: Legal and Political Words for Mass Atrocities Martha Minow Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Professor, Harvard Law School We live at a time when journalists coin phrases like ‘‘compassion fatigue’’ to describe failures of ordinary outrage and human action against massive killings, famines, and plagues. Our is a time when mass media and the Internet offer unprecedented connections among people—and when the top ‘‘hits’’ for Internet searches of ‘‘atrocity’’ and ‘‘nameless crime’’ each produce the Web sites of rock bands,1 even as the ongoing and vicious brutalities in the Darfur region of the Sudan escalate and Rwanda, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and still other regions stagger to recover from the legacies of their own mass atrocities. Other nations participate in the creation and operation of ad hoc and long-term international criminal institutions, and at times use the United Nations’ cumbersome mechanisms to name and even condemn mass violence, but fail to provide swift and effective action to prevent or mitigate mass atrocities. In this context, one can only welcome David Scheffer’s thoughtful and practical call to separate the political and legal uses of ‘‘genocide’’ and to devise the broader category of ‘‘atrocity crimes’’ for public communication about genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Scheffer’s essay represents the kind of scholarship on vital international affairs that is most needed. Every page reveals both his on-the-ground experience as US ambassador-at-large for war crimes and US representative to the United Nations and his analytic care. His report of barriers to effective action in response to recent experiences of genocide and mass violence is compelling and distressing. He identifies four problems: first, the legal requirements for establishing what is a genocide are stringent and cumbersome and contribute to delays in international responses; second, the absence of a well-developed idea of stages prior to but leading to genocide similarly contributes to delays in international responses; third, the reliance on legal terms in political discourse confuses the demands of each realm; and, fourth, there is no easy public term for the collection of horrors that lawyers name ‘‘genocide,’’ ‘‘crimes against humanity,’’ and harms of comparable seriousness and massiveness. Therefore, Scheffer recommends the development of new terms, including ‘‘precursors of genocide’’ and ‘‘atrocity crimes.’’ The frustration behind Scheffer’s effort is palpable and telling, and the failures of national and international response deserve much more serious attention than they have received.2 But the problems he addresses will not be cured by new words. It is a matter of some interest that a person of Scheffer’s wisdom and expertise should put his emphasis in that direction. That choice in itself deserves some discussion, but the necessary energy would be better spent pursuing better leadership, better media and educational efforts to mobilize sustained public responsiveness, and the development of a richer spectrum of available responses to join national and international efforts to halt mass and dehumanizing violence. I will try to elaborate through three comments. Martha Minow, ‘‘Naming Horror: Legal and Political Words for Mass Atrocities.’’ Genocide Studies and Prevention 2, 1 (April 2007): 37–42. ß 2007 Genocide Studies and Prevention. First, as attractive as ‘‘naming’’ may seem for changing perceptions and behavior, renaming legal categories will do little to address underlying problems of leadership and will Satisfying legal criteria for genocide for purposes of prosecution is difficult. Diplomats thinking of launching interventions can get caught up in anticipating the legal difficulties while something that appears to be a genocide unfolds. But attributing delays and reluctance to mount national and international responses seems a mistake, given the more obvious sources of reluctance in apathy, fear, self-interest, and perceived futility on the parts of national leaders and their constituents. Blaming the legal categories here is like blaming the legal categories of tort law for the national and international failures to deal with global warming. The cure will not come from new words. Instead, we need better leadership and a spectrum of responses to join national and international efforts to halt mass and dehumanizing violence. Scheffer perceptively describes the laborious process of defining a particular atrocity as a genocide3 and attributes the tardiness of national and international response...

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