Genocide: Inconsistency & Dilemma

1. Genocide: Inconsistency & Dilemma Why haven't we lived up to our vows? Charles U. Walters Presentation of Capstone Fall 2007

2. Stance versus Response • Shouldn’t they be similar? • Our stance has been a diametrical opposition to genocide • Our response has been to intervene where feasible and if the situation poses a risk to national interests which in happenstance hasn’t involved intervention to prevent or curb the occurrence of genocide

3. The Armenian Genocide Henry Morgenthau The Holocaust Rafael Lemkin The Development of the Genocide Concept and American Feelings

4. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (1948) • The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish • In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. • Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals. • Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide From the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm

5. Reservations along with the US Ratification of The Genocide Convention (1988) • Before any dispute to which the United States is a party may be submitted to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice under this article, the specific consent of the United States is required in each case. • That nothing in the Convention requires or authorizes legislation or other action by the United States of America prohibited by the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the United States. • The United Nations Treaty Collection (2001)

7. US Inconsistency • The inconsistency is not in but between our rhetoric, values and our actions. • The United States has, since its coinage, condemned genocide. • “American leaders… have repeatedly committed themselves to preventing the reoccurrence of genocide. • Prior to Bosnia however, the US “had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred” (Power). (though it has condemned genocide with hindsight)

8. The Dilemma • When and where should America and the UN intervene? • Peacekeepers have been in Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda but have pulled out when the situations became dire. • Only after the genocide has taken place has the US and the UN taken action to punish those responsible.

9. Realism • If intervention is costly or non-beneficial to national interests then it should be avoided at all costs. • But focuses on cost/analysis such as the fiscal costs of intervention, the human costs, not on an ethical standard • “Realism in its purest form argues that statesmen ought to absolutely disregard considerations like human rights in favor of a focus on national interests” (McKay). • “To expect human beings and organizations to think about the interest of others before their own is to ask them to deny their own instincts for self-preservation” (Kaplan 101).

10. Idealism • America has a moral responsibility to intervene on the behalf of humanity. • “Idealism argues that one ought to take the moral route in all circumstances, regardless of whether doing what’s right is in the national interest or not” (McKay) • Should not democracy be a source of hope? • Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms • “There is a level of violence and atrocities so offensive to the American and democratic conscience as to override considerations of the national interest” (Kissinger)

11. Selective Engagers • Believe intervention is necessary but realize that it is only possible in some cases, so make your point to the world in select instances. • Believe that moral responsibility and the works of day-to-day foreign policy do not have to be intertwined, that the ability to intervene militarily in humanitarian crises is “bounded by circumstance.”

12. Bosnia (1992-1995) • What Happened? • Serb militia began slaughtering Croats and Muslims denying the autonomy that had passed with 99.4% of voters voting for removal from Serbia. • 200,000 Bosnian’s killed in 3 ½ years and more than 2 million were displaced • “The Bush and Clinton Administrations’ responses to the atrocities in Bosnia were consistent with prior American responses to genocide”—they allowed it to proceed, “unimpeded by U.S. action and often emboldened by U.S. inaction” (Power).

15. Rwanda 1994 • What happened? • Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed and a military coup took control. • Estimated between 800,000 and 1,000,000 million Tutsi and moderate Hutus were slaughtered • “Did we have a moral responsibility to stay there? Would it have made a difference?” (U.S. Ambassador David Rawson) • The Clinton administration avoided the use of the G-word because the term would nearly demand US intervention

17. What Now? • Realistically America cannot intervene in all cases of humanitarian need. • Ideally America creates an inconsistency when it intervenes only during times of national interests • To move towards a solution America must not try to act unilaterally but rather work through multilateralism relying largely on the UN

18. Major Works • Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, 2007 edition • Henry Kissinger’s Does America Need a Foreign Policy? 2001 • Jon Western, Selling Intervention in America, 2005 • Eric A. Heinz, “The Rhetoric of Genocide in U.S. Foreign Policy: Rwanda and Darfur Compared,” Political Science Quarterly, 2007 • Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes, America Against the World, 2006 • Robert D. Kaplan, Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos, 2002 • David McKay, & Andrew Wroe, Controversies in American Society and Politics, 2002