What's in a Name?: Reflections on Using, Not Using, and Overusing the "G-Word"

What’s in a Name? Reflections on Using, Not Using, and Overusing the ‘‘G-Word’’ Martin Mennecke Doctoral candidate, Danish Institute for International Studies Introduction In August 1941, in a live broadcast from London, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described the atrocities committed by Nazi troops and police under the German attack on the Soviet Union as something unprecedented: ‘‘Since the Mongol invasions of Europe in the sixteenth century, there has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale, or approaching such a scale. And this is but the beginning. . . . We are in the presence of a crime without a name.’’1 A few years later, at Nuremberg, because of the lack of international legislation on this very crime, Hermann Göring and his cronies were not convicted of genocide against Europe’s Jews or against the Sinti and Roma. The term ‘‘genocide’’ found entry into the language of only some of the indictments. In fact, as is well known to genocide scholars, the term ‘‘genocide’’ had first been coined in a scholarly publication in 1944, too late for the Nuremberg trials, and was introduced to international law only in 1948, when the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNCG).2 This convention was the result of Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin’s tireless lobbying of government representatives from around the world to make genocide an international crime. Since then, the formerly nameless crime of genocide has come a long way. After a period of stagnation during the Cold War, it has been included in the statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Before the two UN ad hoc tribunals, numerous genocide cases have been heard, resulting in an ever-growing body of case law on the crime of genocide. In one of these cases, ICTR judges labeled genocide the ‘‘crime of crimes,’’ a phrase often understood to mark a special status.3 Similarly, in a case concerning state responsibility before the International Court of Justice, counsel for Bosnia and Herzegovina called genocide the ‘‘super crime.’’4 In 2004, the UN secretary-general established the office of Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide; in 2006 he added an Advisory Committee on Genocide Prevention. In academia, Lemkin’s creation of the term ‘‘genocide’’ has given rise to the field of genocide studies, and this field is indeed thriving: there are, as of this writing, two international associations of genocide scholars, several international journals focusing primarily on genocide research, and a fast-growing number of related university courses around the world. Despite all these promising developments, genocide as a crime does not seem to end. There is more talk about genocide and research into genocide than ever before, and still genocide continues. Most prominently, widespread and systematic attacks on different tribal groups in the Darfur province of Sudan have over the last two years been discussed as yet another case of genocide. In fact, much time was spent on the question of whether the crimes committed against parts of the Darfuri population Martin Mennecke, ‘‘What’s in a Name? Reflections on Using, Not Using, and Overusing the ‘G-Word.’’’ Genocide Studies and Prevention 2, 1 (April 2007): 57–72. ß 2007 Genocide Studies and Prevention. indeed constitute genocide; then, in the spring of 2005, the focus shifted toward obtaining the consent of the Sudanese government to the deployment of UN peacekeepers.5 It is in this context that David Scheffer puts forward two interesting proposals concerning the labeling and classification of the crime of genocide. Scheffer introduces, first, the term ‘‘precursors of genocide’’ to describe circumstances that could lead to genocide. The idea behind this new language is to liberate governments from ‘‘the genocide factor’’—a hesitancy Scheffer believes to exist on the part of governments to apply the label ‘‘genocide’’ to any given situation. Scheffer posits that governments should adopt a less restrictive approach to using the term ‘‘genocide’’ and wants to distinguish legal, political, and historical applications of the term. Second, Scheffer develops the concept of...