Editors' Introduction

This issue of Genocide Studies International includes essays on Rwanda and the interpretation of the genocide, the role of memory of the genocide of the Armenians in creating identity, the genocide of indigenous peoples and how "liberal" nations (Britain, the United States, and Australia) silence that history, the relationship between nationalism and genocide, and the question of the role of trials for perpetrators of genocide. There is also the question of the continuity between regimes that carried out genocide and their successor states, in this case the Young Turk regime and the Turkish Republic.

The essays illustrate these issues from different perspectives and scholarly focus, yet all raise fundamental questions that are part of our current situation. For example, what is the point of prosecuting perpetrators of genocide? One could easily say to deter future genocides and crimes against humanity, to provide "justice" and show respect for those who were victims of the crime of genocide. But then the issue is raised: Who can carry out the necessary trials and are trials able to deter massive human rights violations and offer solace to victims? Is justice an end in itself or a means to other goals? Two distinguished scholars, whose work is reviewed here, argue that in some instances prosecutions should not take place because they may jeopardize peace talks to end the destruction. The question then is: What is most important, punishing perpetrators or saving lives? Justice and security are in conflict in these instances. Yet there is another perspective that raises the question of whether States can be trusted to try those who commit genocide. Aren't States always pursuing their own interests, can they be neutral, is all State justice "victor's justice"? After all, the Allied powers (the US, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union) drew up the Nuremberg Charter in such a way that they could not be prosecuted for crimes against humanity that they may have committed in the past (the colonial powers were worried about that, as was the US with its destruction of indigenous peoples as well as lynching, and the Soviets with their treatment of nationality groups, induced famine as a means of suppression, and so on)—the trick was to say that "crimes against humanity" had to have occurred during war. But then if States can't be trusted, and international bodies are themselves inevitably State related, who can conduct such trials? The answer that some scholars propose is that citizen groups, NGOs, and the like, conduct the trials. For many of us, that does not seem to be an improvement or perhaps, in most instances, even a possibility. And how would such a body enforce any decision reached? Further, we should not conceive of justice as retributive only. There is also "restorative justice," which includes both restitution and reparations to the extent possible. And there is one other type of justice, which is a "transitional justice" that aims at transforming and reconstructing the institutions and policies that allowed for the massive violation of human rights and genocide in the first place. In his essay in this volume, the international legal scholar Aaron Fechtelberg calls particular attention to the omission of transitional justice by scholars who focus only on retributive justice that would be carried out by non-State groups.

Other essays raise the question of how to assess the truth claims of various scholars, journalists, and government officials. Cheng Xu disputes, for example, the notion that nationalism is either an inevitable or sufficient cause of genocide. A short answer to that, though he doesn't make it, is that while nationalism may sometimes be involved in genocide, there are also many other sources: ideology of various kinds (the Khmer Rouge version, the religious version with ISIS); the struggle for power and domination (Rwanda); the quest for gain (the Spanish Conquest); and conquest in the ancient world and well into the thirteenth century, where war and genocide were often the same—the men were killed, the women and young children made slaves. Cheng Xu, however, focuses on nationalism rather than other bases for genocide and begins by...