Abstract:This paper reconciles a substantial gap in legal scholarship: the Islamic State's (ISIS's) unrecognized genocide against Shia Muslims. Unlike ISIS's crimes against Yazidis, no substantial legal analysis on ISIS's Shia victims has been published. And while there are popular initiatives demanding ISIS's violence against Christians be recognized as genocide, there are no parallel movements on behalf of ISIS's Shia victims, despite a much stronger legal claim. As this paper expands, ISIS's genocide against Shias is unambiguous; Shia Muslims plainly comprise a protected religious group, ISIS has been transparent in terms of its genocidal intent, and ISIS's systematic killing of Shias clearly constitutes genocidal conduct under the Genocide Convention. Over the course of this paper, I advance this thesis, demarking clear parallels with ISIS's well-established genocide against Iraq's Yazidis. I also explain the significance of the legal community's neglect of ISIS's Shia victims.
{"title":"ISIS Crimes Against the Shia: The Islamic State's Genocide Against Shia Muslims","authors":"Emily Hawley","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.2.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.2.02","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper reconciles a substantial gap in legal scholarship: the Islamic State's (ISIS's) unrecognized genocide against Shia Muslims. Unlike ISIS's crimes against Yazidis, no substantial legal analysis on ISIS's Shia victims has been published. And while there are popular initiatives demanding ISIS's violence against Christians be recognized as genocide, there are no parallel movements on behalf of ISIS's Shia victims, despite a much stronger legal claim. As this paper expands, ISIS's genocide against Shias is unambiguous; Shia Muslims plainly comprise a protected religious group, ISIS has been transparent in terms of its genocidal intent, and ISIS's systematic killing of Shias clearly constitutes genocidal conduct under the Genocide Convention. Over the course of this paper, I advance this thesis, demarking clear parallels with ISIS's well-established genocide against Iraq's Yazidis. I also explain the significance of the legal community's neglect of ISIS's Shia victims.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"160 - 181"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46534123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey by Lerna Ekmekcioglu (review)","authors":"Eliz Sanasarian","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.2.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.2.11","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"266 - 269"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3138/GSI.11.2.11","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48122089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This essay discusses the work of an American NGO, the Environmental Health Council, in documenting and remediating mercury and other heavy metal contamination in Huancavelica, Peru. The nearby Santa Bárbara and Challacatana hills are among the most extensive cinnabar deposits in the world. Mercury distilled in Huancavelica during the Spanish colonial period was dispatched throughout the Andean region and was a requisite input for the production of silver through the amalgamation process. While this stimulated the rise of modern globalism, it has left extensive contamination in its wake with which contemporary residents contend.
{"title":"Huancavelica, Peru: From Sacred Shrine to Contaminated Capital","authors":"Nicholas A. Robins","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.2.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.2.07","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay discusses the work of an American NGO, the Environmental Health Council, in documenting and remediating mercury and other heavy metal contamination in Huancavelica, Peru. The nearby Santa Bárbara and Challacatana hills are among the most extensive cinnabar deposits in the world. Mercury distilled in Huancavelica during the Spanish colonial period was dispatched throughout the Andean region and was a requisite input for the production of silver through the amalgamation process. While this stimulated the rise of modern globalism, it has left extensive contamination in its wake with which contemporary residents contend.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"240 - 249"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3138/GSI.11.2.07","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48925061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:In 1918, some 500,000 Ottoman Armenians found themselves displaced from their homes or living in Muslim households in the Eastern Mediterranean and the South Caucasus. For most, life did not return to normal after WWI. Rather, new wars, war scares, political maneuverings, economic policies, famines, and epidemics during 1918–1930 resulted in a long-term refugee crisis that was responded to by a large number of Armenian and non-Armenian organizations. This article looks at one such response: the humanitarian relocation to Canada of 110 boys and 39 girls and women—all genocide refugees and most of them orphans. It traces how this relocation campaign was realized despite Canadian immigration authorities' long-standing efforts to keep Asians, the impoverished, and the stateless from entering the country. Breaking with the often simplistic and celebratory tone of the literature on humanitarian aid to Ottoman Armenians, this article discusses how the Canadian fundraising campaigns of 1880–1922 were a liability for this subsequent relocation project, and it pays special attention to the people and ideas that opposed it.
{"title":"Sympathy and Exclusion: The Migration of Child and Women Survivors of the Armenian Genocide from the Eastern Mediterranean to Canada, 1923–1930","authors":"Daniel Ohanian","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.2.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.2.04","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In 1918, some 500,000 Ottoman Armenians found themselves displaced from their homes or living in Muslim households in the Eastern Mediterranean and the South Caucasus. For most, life did not return to normal after WWI. Rather, new wars, war scares, political maneuverings, economic policies, famines, and epidemics during 1918–1930 resulted in a long-term refugee crisis that was responded to by a large number of Armenian and non-Armenian organizations. This article looks at one such response: the humanitarian relocation to Canada of 110 boys and 39 girls and women—all genocide refugees and most of them orphans. It traces how this relocation campaign was realized despite Canadian immigration authorities' long-standing efforts to keep Asians, the impoverished, and the stateless from entering the country. Breaking with the often simplistic and celebratory tone of the literature on humanitarian aid to Ottoman Armenians, this article discusses how the Canadian fundraising campaigns of 1880–1922 were a liability for this subsequent relocation project, and it pays special attention to the people and ideas that opposed it.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"197 - 215"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43727321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:It's been over 70 years since the Nuremberg trials helped establish the primacy of legal mechanisms to deal with international human rights abuses, especially for genocide. Since then, we have seen a proliferation of courts and tribunals focused on bringing to justice perpetrators of genocide. In this paper, we critically examine the ways in which Nuremberg shaped and influenced these responses to genocide and to our understanding of the nature of justice in post-conflict societies. In an era when genocides and mass atrocity crimes continue to occur, it is important to understand the benefits and limitations of legal strategies for post-conflict societies and how they influence other transitional justice mechanisms. We bring to light the clear tension between the different goals of international criminal justice, namely punishment, prevention, and peace, and show that increased reliance on punishment does not necessarily brings about peace. To sustain peace and stability in post-conflict era, countries have also turned to truth and reconciliation commission, lustration, and reparation.
{"title":"Transitional Justice and the Legacy of Nuremberg: The Promise and Problems of Confronting Atrocity in Post-Conflict Societies","authors":"P. Besmel, A. Álvarez","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.2.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.2.03","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:It's been over 70 years since the Nuremberg trials helped establish the primacy of legal mechanisms to deal with international human rights abuses, especially for genocide. Since then, we have seen a proliferation of courts and tribunals focused on bringing to justice perpetrators of genocide. In this paper, we critically examine the ways in which Nuremberg shaped and influenced these responses to genocide and to our understanding of the nature of justice in post-conflict societies. In an era when genocides and mass atrocity crimes continue to occur, it is important to understand the benefits and limitations of legal strategies for post-conflict societies and how they influence other transitional justice mechanisms. We bring to light the clear tension between the different goals of international criminal justice, namely punishment, prevention, and peace, and show that increased reliance on punishment does not necessarily brings about peace. To sustain peace and stability in post-conflict era, countries have also turned to truth and reconciliation commission, lustration, and reparation.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"182 - 196"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48376129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Article II(b) of the UN Genocide Convention is rarely applied to a specific case in genocide studies. The Australian Aboriginal experience illustrates Article II(a) physical killing and II(e) child removal well enough. But in the longer term, II(b)—"causing serious bodily or mental harm"—has been the major process in destroying Aboriginal life and culture since the start of the twentieth century. The physical harm is readily detectable, but it is essentially the "serious mental harm" aspect that is examined here.
{"title":"Seldom Asked, Seldom Answered: II(b) or Not II(b)?","authors":"C. Tatz","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.2.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.2.05","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Article II(b) of the UN Genocide Convention is rarely applied to a specific case in genocide studies. The Australian Aboriginal experience illustrates Article II(a) physical killing and II(e) child removal well enough. But in the longer term, II(b)—\"causing serious bodily or mental harm\"—has been the major process in destroying Aboriginal life and culture since the start of the twentieth century. The physical harm is readily detectable, but it is essentially the \"serious mental harm\" aspect that is examined here.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"216 - 227"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43970037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
It is tragic that The Locust Effect has to be written in the first place. The developed world should not need to be woken up to the violence that plagues the lives of the poor. In truth, no society should be guilty of abandoning the impoverished to the clutches of violence. Unfortunately, according to Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros, this is our reality. The developed world is neglectful, preoccupied with poverty alleviation through aid and economic growth. Meanwhile, the poor continue to suffer from institutional failures that leave them devoid of remedy. Without justice and basic protections, they continue to be victimized and stripped of their humanity. The imagery that confronts us at the outset of the book is intentionally shocking. It sensitizes the reader to the struggles of the poor in the face of devastating violence. However, the authors are not trying to convince us that violence against the poor is wrong. Any sensible person would find their stories repulsive and repugnant. Instead, the book is meant to be a window to the reality of the poor, revealing their hidden personal struggles with violence, and thereby criticize the developed world for what it has not done. This is in the hope of inspiring a change in how we think and talk about development, while feeding a sense of urgency and moral outrage. The authors derive the book’s name from the notion of predatory violence as a plague that has ‘‘the power to destroy everything,’’ much like the locust cloud that devastated the Midwest United States in 1875 (xi). The poor are uniquely vulnerable to this plague because they are desperate and easy to manipulate thanks to their economic circumstances (61). In addition, the poor are typically unprotected because they live under dysfunctional criminal justice systems. This dynamic, the authors explain, confounds conventional approaches to poverty alleviation and leads to a vicious circle. Violence does not figure into the calculus of most aid agencies and international organizations, so conventional programs that target poverty do not address violence directly. In turn, violence effectively undercuts these programs, rendering them ineffective. Meanwhile, the poor remain vulnerable and the plague continues to feed upon them. Accordingly, improving the well-being of the poor is not just a function of increased access to money or goods. Haugen and Boutros argue that they require basic protections. The poor will not flourish if they are subject to sexual exploitation, enslavement, extortion, and theft. Experiencing physical violence may compromise the ability to work while incurring medical fees they are ill-equipped to pay. Human capital accumulation will also suffer if children are too afraid to go to school or kept home because they may be attacked. The acutely impoverished are already high-risk in economic terms. Violence and the threat of violence only amplify the risk while intensifying the consequences when this risk is realized. Haugen and
{"title":"The Locust Effect by Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros (review)","authors":"C. Burdett","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.2.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.2.08","url":null,"abstract":"It is tragic that The Locust Effect has to be written in the first place. The developed world should not need to be woken up to the violence that plagues the lives of the poor. In truth, no society should be guilty of abandoning the impoverished to the clutches of violence. Unfortunately, according to Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros, this is our reality. The developed world is neglectful, preoccupied with poverty alleviation through aid and economic growth. Meanwhile, the poor continue to suffer from institutional failures that leave them devoid of remedy. Without justice and basic protections, they continue to be victimized and stripped of their humanity. The imagery that confronts us at the outset of the book is intentionally shocking. It sensitizes the reader to the struggles of the poor in the face of devastating violence. However, the authors are not trying to convince us that violence against the poor is wrong. Any sensible person would find their stories repulsive and repugnant. Instead, the book is meant to be a window to the reality of the poor, revealing their hidden personal struggles with violence, and thereby criticize the developed world for what it has not done. This is in the hope of inspiring a change in how we think and talk about development, while feeding a sense of urgency and moral outrage. The authors derive the book’s name from the notion of predatory violence as a plague that has ‘‘the power to destroy everything,’’ much like the locust cloud that devastated the Midwest United States in 1875 (xi). The poor are uniquely vulnerable to this plague because they are desperate and easy to manipulate thanks to their economic circumstances (61). In addition, the poor are typically unprotected because they live under dysfunctional criminal justice systems. This dynamic, the authors explain, confounds conventional approaches to poverty alleviation and leads to a vicious circle. Violence does not figure into the calculus of most aid agencies and international organizations, so conventional programs that target poverty do not address violence directly. In turn, violence effectively undercuts these programs, rendering them ineffective. Meanwhile, the poor remain vulnerable and the plague continues to feed upon them. Accordingly, improving the well-being of the poor is not just a function of increased access to money or goods. Haugen and Boutros argue that they require basic protections. The poor will not flourish if they are subject to sexual exploitation, enslavement, extortion, and theft. Experiencing physical violence may compromise the ability to work while incurring medical fees they are ill-equipped to pay. Human capital accumulation will also suffer if children are too afraid to go to school or kept home because they may be attacked. The acutely impoverished are already high-risk in economic terms. Violence and the threat of violence only amplify the risk while intensifying the consequences when this risk is realized. Haugen and","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"250 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47542032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:There has been considerable debate among historians and public commentators about whether or not the Great Irish Famine (1845–1851) could be considered as genocide. Recently, controversial journalist Tim Pat Coogan has argued that England's treatment of Ireland in this period can be considered genocide. Historical evidence suggests otherwise. There was considerable blame for the perpetration of Ireland misery beyond the ill conceived and poorly executed policies of successive British governments. At the root of the famine tragedy was an outmoded and poorly functioning landholding system and over-dependence of an impoverished rural underclass on the potato staple. Anglo-Irish landlords, merchants, businessmen of all denominations, large landholding farmers, nationalist politicians, clergy, ineffective implementation of poor relief by local gentry, and unscrupulous port officials and ship's captains must also bear some responsibility in contributing to this calamity in modern Irish history.
摘要：关于爱尔兰大饥荒（1845-1851）是否可以被视为种族灭绝，历史学家和公共评论家之间存在着相当大的争论。最近，有争议的记者Tim Pat Coogan认为，英格兰在这一时期对待爱尔兰的做法可以被视为种族灭绝。历史证据表明情况并非如此。除了历届英国政府构思不周、执行不力的政策之外，爱尔兰的苦难也受到了相当大的指责。饥荒悲剧的根源是一个过时且运作不佳的土地持有系统，以及贫困的农村下层阶级对土豆主食的过度依赖。英国-爱尔兰的地主、商人、各种教派的商人、拥有土地的大农场主、民族主义政客、神职人员、当地士绅对贫困救济的无效实施，以及肆无忌惮的港口官员和船长，也必须为爱尔兰现代史上的这场灾难承担一些责任。
{"title":"The Famine Plot Revisited: A Reassessment of the Great Irish Famine as Genocide","authors":"Mark McGowan","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.1.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.1.04","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:There has been considerable debate among historians and public commentators about whether or not the Great Irish Famine (1845–1851) could be considered as genocide. Recently, controversial journalist Tim Pat Coogan has argued that England's treatment of Ireland in this period can be considered genocide. Historical evidence suggests otherwise. There was considerable blame for the perpetration of Ireland misery beyond the ill conceived and poorly executed policies of successive British governments. At the root of the famine tragedy was an outmoded and poorly functioning landholding system and over-dependence of an impoverished rural underclass on the potato staple. Anglo-Irish landlords, merchants, businessmen of all denominations, large landholding farmers, nationalist politicians, clergy, ineffective implementation of poor relief by local gentry, and unscrupulous port officials and ship's captains must also bear some responsibility in contributing to this calamity in modern Irish history.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"104 - 87"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3138/GSI.11.1.04","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45115197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since the mid-1990s, the field of genocide studies has seen a rapid expansion of interest and attention that has been spurred on by horrific crimes of mass violence in such farflung places as Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a result, scholars from a variety of disciplines have increasingly focused their attention on working to explain the etiology and dynamics of genocidal processes and practices in order to develop effective policies intended to prevent and intervene when genocide appears imminent or has already broken out. Consequently, an extensive literature on genocide exists today that can easily overwhelm the reader because of its extent and complexity. This is especially true when one combines the scholarship of genocide with the writing on the Holocaust, one of the most extensively studied and written about events in all of history. Making sense of this vast literature can be extremely difficult, especially when one also considers that the term itself is conceptually problematic, encompasses a variety of destructive actions and policies, is subject to various definitional debates, and has often been applied in problematic ways. This is where the new book The Magnitude of Genocide, by Australian scholars Colin Tatz and Winton Higgins, fills an important need by providing an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the state of contemporary genocide studies. The authors have not written a simple survey that just summarizes the state of knowledge of genocide studies, but rather organize their book and discussion around some original ideas that contribute to the depth and explanatory power of their analysis. Approaching the subject from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, for example, the authors set out to examine genocide based on what they refer to as the ‘‘magnitude’’ of different cases, a term they borrow from seismology and the study of earthquakes that allows them to compare and contrast different examples of genocide based on their relative ‘‘intensity and immensity.’’ It is an intriguing and innovative approach that enables the authors to assess the relative scale or dimensions of genocide in a variety of cases, some of them well known, others less so. Although the Holocaust does loom large in the narrative simply because of its sheer scale and role as the paradigmatic example of genocide, Tatz and Higgins include many other examples of genocide as well in order to provide the reader with a broader understanding of the various ways in which genocide has been perpetrated. Some of these examples, such as the Armenian and Rwandan genocides, are well-known, while others, such as the violence that occurred in East Timor, or at the founding of Bangladesh, or the contemporary attacks against the minority Yazidi in Iraq by ISIS, are not very known at all. Not only
{"title":"The Magnitude of Genocide by Colin Tatz and Winton Higgins (review)","authors":"A. Álvarez","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.1.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.1.09","url":null,"abstract":"Since the mid-1990s, the field of genocide studies has seen a rapid expansion of interest and attention that has been spurred on by horrific crimes of mass violence in such farflung places as Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a result, scholars from a variety of disciplines have increasingly focused their attention on working to explain the etiology and dynamics of genocidal processes and practices in order to develop effective policies intended to prevent and intervene when genocide appears imminent or has already broken out. Consequently, an extensive literature on genocide exists today that can easily overwhelm the reader because of its extent and complexity. This is especially true when one combines the scholarship of genocide with the writing on the Holocaust, one of the most extensively studied and written about events in all of history. Making sense of this vast literature can be extremely difficult, especially when one also considers that the term itself is conceptually problematic, encompasses a variety of destructive actions and policies, is subject to various definitional debates, and has often been applied in problematic ways. This is where the new book The Magnitude of Genocide, by Australian scholars Colin Tatz and Winton Higgins, fills an important need by providing an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the state of contemporary genocide studies. The authors have not written a simple survey that just summarizes the state of knowledge of genocide studies, but rather organize their book and discussion around some original ideas that contribute to the depth and explanatory power of their analysis. Approaching the subject from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, for example, the authors set out to examine genocide based on what they refer to as the ‘‘magnitude’’ of different cases, a term they borrow from seismology and the study of earthquakes that allows them to compare and contrast different examples of genocide based on their relative ‘‘intensity and immensity.’’ It is an intriguing and innovative approach that enables the authors to assess the relative scale or dimensions of genocide in a variety of cases, some of them well known, others less so. Although the Holocaust does loom large in the narrative simply because of its sheer scale and role as the paradigmatic example of genocide, Tatz and Higgins include many other examples of genocide as well in order to provide the reader with a broader understanding of the various ways in which genocide has been perpetrated. Some of these examples, such as the Armenian and Rwandan genocides, are well-known, while others, such as the violence that occurred in East Timor, or at the founding of Bangladesh, or the contemporary attacks against the minority Yazidi in Iraq by ISIS, are not very known at all. Not only","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"153 - 155"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47098190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Starvation is widely recognized as a weapon of extreme mass violence, a gross violation of human rights, and a crime in international criminal law, yet forced starvation is still practiced today. Starvation was used as a political tool against Ukraine in the Holodomor, was part of Nazi strategy during World War II, and is one of the most readily identified aspects of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire during the period 1915 to 1923. This study examines how starvation was used by the Young Turk regime as a deliberate policy against the Armenians, the Armenians' experience of starvation, and why starvation was chosen as a tool of genocide. Starvation was highly effective in the large number of Armenians that perished, and was deliberately chosen as a method of killing, partly for plausible deniability and partly for the prolonged suffering it caused, resulting in the eradication of Armenian identity.
{"title":"Starvation and Its Political Use in the Armenian Genocide","authors":"George N. Shirinian","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.1.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.1.01","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Starvation is widely recognized as a weapon of extreme mass violence, a gross violation of human rights, and a crime in international criminal law, yet forced starvation is still practiced today. Starvation was used as a political tool against Ukraine in the Holodomor, was part of Nazi strategy during World War II, and is one of the most readily identified aspects of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire during the period 1915 to 1923. This study examines how starvation was used by the Young Turk regime as a deliberate policy against the Armenians, the Armenians' experience of starvation, and why starvation was chosen as a tool of genocide. Starvation was highly effective in the large number of Armenians that perished, and was deliberately chosen as a method of killing, partly for plausible deniability and partly for the prolonged suffering it caused, resulting in the eradication of Armenian identity.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"37 - 8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3138/GSI.11.1.01","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44313276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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