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Draft:Genocide Watch

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Genocide Watch
Founded1999
FounderGregory Stanton
Websitegenocidewatch.com

In 1999 Gregory Stanton founded Genocide Watch,[1] a non-governmental organization campaigning against genocide based in Washington, D.C.[2][3] Genocide Watch is the chair and coordinator of the Alliance Against Genocide, which includes 125 organizations in 31 countries, including the Minority Rights Group, the International Crisis Group, the Aegis Trust, and Survival International.[4] Its board of advisers includes former commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda Roméo Dallaire, former Nuremberg Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz, former US Ambassador to the United Nations and former Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power,[5][6] and former UN Special Advisers for the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng and Alice Nderitu.

In 2010, Genocide Watch was the first[7] organization to assert that the 1980s Gukurahundi massacres in Zimbabwe met the definition of genocide, calling for the prosecution of Zimbabwean leaders including president Robert Mugabe.[8][9][10] Genocide Watch has also indicated numerous times that the Armenians are at risk of genocide due to Azerbaijan's "unprovoked attack" on Armenia in 2022 and its blockade and offensive of Artsakh (2022–2023).[11][12]

Stanton has formed alliances with dozens of human rights leaders, such as Baroness Kennedy and Ewelina Ochab from the Coalition for Genocide Response.[13] In 2020, Genocide Watch joined other human rights groups urging the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate the actions of the Chinese government regarding Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region, and demand that China end persecution of Uyghurs that amount to acts of genocide.[14] In the case of Bosco Ntaganda within the International Criminal Court investigation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Genocide Watch submitted amicus curiae observations[15] along with the Antiquities Coalition and Blue Shield International, on the interpretation of attacks on cultural property in the Rome Statute.[16]

Stanton has criticized the term "ethnic cleansing", calling it a term invented by Slobodan Milošević as a term used for the denial and cover-up of genocide, stating it whitewashes the crimes and impedes forceful action to stop genocide.[17] He also rejects the "only intent" doctrine that the International Court of Justice used in Bosnia v Serbia and Croatia v Serbia to find that because Serbia's intent was "ethnic cleansing," Serbia's "sole" and "only" intent was not genocide, Serbia had not violated the Genocide Convention, writing:[18]

The ICJ's doctrine of "only intent" for genocide is so wrong that if you liken it to, for instance, intent in ordinary criminal law, it's like saying that if somebody picks up a gun, shoots and kills someone, they can't be charged with murder because they also had the intent to rob the person.

It's a fact that the intent of a state has to be even more complicated and more complex than the intention of an individual. No individual can possibly commit an act, almost any act, that only has one intention. So, this doctrine by the ICJ, I think, is fatally flawed. It would make it impossible to find that any state has violated the Genocide Convention.

References

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  1. ^ "Gregory Stanton". Genocide Watch. Retrieved 2019-03-24.
  2. ^ Çakmak, Cenap (2007), "Genocide Watch", Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice, Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc., doi:10.4135/9781412956215.n351, ISBN 978-1-4129-1812-1, retrieved 2020-10-09
  3. ^ Totten, Samuel (2017). "4. The role of Nongovernmental Organizations in Addressing the Prevention, Intervention, and Punishment of Genocide in the 1980s, 1990s, and Early 2000s". Genocide at the millennium. Totten, Samuel,, Sherman, Marc I. Abingdon, Oxon: Rutledge. ISBN 978-1-351-51784-3. OCLC 1013927872.
  4. ^ "ALLIANCE MEMBERS". against-genocide.org. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  5. ^ "Samantha Power". U.S. Agency for International Development. 2023-01-12. Archived from the original on 14 December 2022. Retrieved 2023-01-21.
  6. ^ "Professor John Packer named to Genocide Watch Board of Advisors". Faculty of Law - Common Law Section. February 5, 2019. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  7. ^ "Guku team turns focus on Horn of Africa". The Zimbabwean. 2016-04-07. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  8. ^ "Gukurahundi noose tightens on Mugabe". The Zimbabwean. 2010-09-18. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  9. ^ "Gukurahundi perpetrators face prosecution". NewsDay. January 30, 2012. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  10. ^ "Probe into Gukurahundi era begins". Daily News. February 28, 2019. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  11. ^ Watch, Genocide (2023-09-21). "Genocide Alert:Artsakh surrenders to Azerbaijan". genocidewatch. Retrieved 2024-01-22. The silent genocide has become overt...Genocide Watch considers Azerbaijan to be at Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 5: Organization, Stage 7: Preparation, Stage 8: Persecution, and Stage 9: Extermination.
  12. ^ Hill, Nat (2022-09-23). "Genocide Warning: Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh". genocidewatch. Retrieved 2024-01-22. Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Warning due to Azerbaijan's unprovoked military attacks on Armenia and on the unrecognized Armenian Republic of Artsakh.
  13. ^ "StackPath". www.indcatholicnews.com. 7 November 2019. Retrieved 2021-01-31.
  14. ^ Kashgarian, Asim (September 17, 2020). "Activists, Experts Call on UN to Recognize China's Uighur 'Genocide'". Voice of America. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  15. ^ "Amicus Curiae Observations Pursuant to Rule 103 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence on Behalf of the Antiquities Coalition, Blue Shield International and Genocide Watch" (PDF). icc-cpi.int. ICC-01/04-02/06. International Criminal Court. 18 September 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  16. ^ Karegeya, Portia (2020-09-21). "21 September 2020 - ICC AC receives amicus curiae briefs in Ntaganda case". ICL Media Review. Archived from the original on October 6, 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  17. ^ Blum, R.; Stanton, G. H.; Sagi, S.; Richter, E. D. (2007). "'Ethnic cleansing' bleaches the atrocities of genocide". The European Journal of Public Health. 18 (2): 204–209. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckm011. PMID 17513346.
  18. ^ "Can the World Court stop Israel?". 4 Feb 2024.
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