Genocide and Belonging: Processes of Imagining Communities

Genocide is often referred to as “the crime of crimes.” It is a crime that is very high on the nastiness scale. The purpose of the genocidaire is of course to destroy a community — a community that he regards as a threat to his community, whether the threat is perceived as physical, economic or cultural. The way this takes place and the complicity of law in this process has been extensively explored by scholars. But the process of destroying a community is often, if not always, simultaneously an “exercise in community building,” a process through which intracommunal bonds and belonging are sought to be strengthened. This aspect of genocide has been entirely neglected by scholars, especially the role of law in that process. This article makes and defends two claims about communities and belonging in relation to genocide. First, it argues that as perverse as it sounds, genocide is in fact an exercise in community building and law is highly implicated in that process. It defends the thesis with arguments that are conceptual as well as empirical. The second, and more hopeful, claim is that the international response to prevent genocide or to punish genocidaires is itself a process in community building, a way of imagining a version of the international community, a counter to the genocidaire vision of a pure and superior community. Using two international legal doctrines — universal jurisdiction and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) — the article shows that international responses to genocide are not simply instrumental (preventing and punishing genocide), they have constitutive dimensions as well. The international community that is imagined through these two doctrines is one that is diverse and vulnerable.