A Crime Universally Acknowledged

A CRIME UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED
BETH ZELMAN*
ABSTRACT
Following World War II, the international community acknowledged its obli-
gation to both prevent and punish genocide. It accomplished the latter through
the establishment of courts and tribunals with the authority to exert universal
jurisdiction over the crime of genocide. However, efforts to prevent genocide gen-
erally took the form of soft law or were part of much broader human rights ini-
tiatives that lacked substantive enforcement mechanisms. Consequently, the
international community has struggled to fulf‌ill its full range of obligations
under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide (Genocide Convention) and new initiatives must be implemented to
bolster established treaties and programs.
An examination of one of the most recent incidents of genocide reveals that
the exercise of free speech can be an extremely effective tool in the f‌ight to both ex-
pose and prevent genocidal acts. However, those who exercise this right often
suffer grave personal consequences. Included in this Note is a proposed resolu-
tion that would promote the exercise of free speech and criminalize the suppres-
sion of such speech when it is used to expose or combat genocide.
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 728
II. CURRENT INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS TO COMBAT GENOCIDE . . . . . . 731
III. GENOCIDE AND JOURNALISM: LEARNING FROM THE MYANMAR
EXAMPLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733
IV. DEFENDING THE DEFENDERS: DEFICIENCIES IN EFFORTS TO
PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738
A. Uniform Standards and Guidance Must Be Identif‌ied to
Ensure Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740
B. Enforcement Mechanisms Are Needed to Enhance Protections 742
C. In Order to Gain Support for Substantive Enforcement
Mechanisms, A Clear and Narrow Focus is Required . . . . . . 743
* Beth Zelman has nearly a decade of legal experience with the federal government, including
signif‌icant time at the Department of Justice. She currently serves as an Attorney-Advisor with the
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and is an L.L.M. candidate at the Georgetown
University Law Center focusing on National Security. The author is writing in her individual
capacity. The opinions and views expressed in this Note belong to the author and do not
represent those of any other organization, including Georgetown University or the United States
Government. All information used to draft this Note was derived from public sources. V
C 2020,
Beth Zelman.
727
V. ENHANCING GENOCIDE PREVENTION THROUGH AN AMENDMENT TO
THE ROME STATUTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744
VI. CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 748
I. INTRODUCTION
Following World War II (WWII), the United Nations (U.N.) enacted
what came to be known as the Genocide Convention. Its primary aims
were to prevent and punish genocide, but the approaches to fulf‌illing
these obligations were quite different.
1
Efforts to punish were rooted in
international criminal law and took the form of binding treaties which
directed action, assigned jurisdiction, and def‌ined the elements of the
crime. Throughout the years, international courts and tribunals have
been established to try those who perpetrated the crime, and the world
generally united around a uniform def‌inition of the crime and the legal
penalties for its commission. For decades, however, the international
community relied heavily on the promotion of human rights and the
deterrent effect of punishment as the exclusive means of preventing
genocide. Independent preventative efforts that ultimately emerged
took the form of aspirational, non-binding human rights declarations
and mandates, or binding treaties that lacked substantive enforcement
mechanisms and to which numerous reservations, understandings, and
declarations were lodged. What became evident in the latter half of the
twentieth century is that the world could unite in its condemnation of
genocide, but when it came to adopting certain human rights stand-
ards, which acted as the foundation of efforts to prevent genocide,
countries had extraordinarily different interpretations of those rights,
the ways in which they should be implemented, and whether they
should be implemented at all.
Consequently, those who promote and carry out efforts to prevent
genocide, individuals who rely heavily on human rights protections to
accomplish their mission, often operate without the protection of gov-
ernment or the law. They tiptoe around controversial issues of sover-
eignty and cultural divides and seek to educate, to ease tensions, to
address small acts that could escalate, to care for, to heal, and to ex-
pose.
2
Given the arena in which these individuals operate, governed by
divergent laws and varying levels of commitment to human rights, it is
1. G.A. Res. 260(A)(III), The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide (Dec. 9, 1948).
2. Human rights activists operating in this space may be professional or non-professional and
often hail from vastly different professions: medical, academic, political, etc. Who is a Defender,
GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
728 [Vol. 51

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