February Issue
Anna Halpern
February
We have often heard of South Africa’s much-mediatized Genocide case against Israel in front of the ICJ, and many of us have also seen Amnesty International’s reports which call the mass deaths in Gaza a genocide. The controversy surrounding the appropriate term and the clear political game behind any position adopted on the matter really seem to have reopened the question of politics behind the terminology. While we may have heard this debate before, the end of how we name events so that they match the reality of the context of the war in Gaza is part of a far larger issue that has deep historical roots. Indeed, the use of terminology to manipulate public opinion and deny war crimes and genocides is a very powerful tool that has been employed throughout the 20th and even 21st century.
Before entering the specifics of the cases that we will compare, it seems impossible not to define the terms that are so critically argued upon. Genocides, war crimes and crimes against humanity are all international crimes committed by individuals or governments that “affect the core dignity of human beings.” In order to understand the conflict of namings and narratives, one must know the terms’ definitions and history.
War crimes refer to “serious breaches of international humanitarian law committed against civilians or enemy combatants during an international or domestic armed conflict, for which the perpetrators may be held criminally liable on an individual basis.” This definition is derived from the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the Geneva Convention of 1949 and its additional protocols and Article 8 of the 1998 Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The definition of a crime against humanity “encompasses crimes such as murder, extermination, rape, persecution and all other inhumane acts of a similar character (wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health), committed ‘as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.’” It is codified in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the ICC.
Finally, the term genocide was originally coined by Raphael Lemkin and first appeared in his 1944 work “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.” It is defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. “It is the specific intention to destroy an identified group either ‘in whole or in part’ that distinguishes the crime of genocide from a crime against humanity.”
These definitions also highlight the critical fact that the term Genocide, for example, simply did not exist during some of the events that now are argued to fit within this definition. Such questions add to the terminological dispute the question of the possibility of judging such an event through the lens of a crime that did not exist at the time. Keeping this background in mind, we can now consider how the application of these definitions has been used and disagreed upon.
An extremely famous case of genocide denial and terminology debate is the case of the Armenian genocide of 1915 which Turkey, and much of the international community, still officially do not recognize despite vast scholarly support. However, the debate over naming and recognizing this event is not unique. While we cannot explore all cases that have sadly occurred, it appears relevant to look at a few more historical cases that have yet to be fully recognized. We will consider the Japanese massacres and war crimes during the invasion of China namely in Nanjing (December 1927 to February 1938) as well as the Bosnian genocide denial (1995). These cases can be linked to a far more recent lack of recognition by China of its persecution of the Uyghur minority. Through both historical examples and the current cases in Gaza and China the critical importance of terminology is underlined, and its broad political implications clearly seep through.
The case of the Armenian genocide is a blatant example of the difficulty of earning official recognition of war crimes, especially genocide, and the tricky word game played by Ankara is critical in this terminological warfare. The Armenian genocide is well recognized by historians and institutions—the creator of the term himself thought to apply it to the context of Ottoman crimes against Armenians in WWI. However, the international scene is not always ruled by expert opinions—as we know all too well—but often is far more politically guided. Thus, the reality is that only 33 countries currently recognize the genocide, and this list notably does not include Turkey.
Indeed, Turkey has always maintained a policy of denying “a deliberate policy of genocide.” The official website of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs portrays the Armenian view as an “embellishe[d]” version that it “selects” in order to vilify Turkey. Moreover, the website follows the phrasing “The events of 1915,” commonly used in official Turkish statements on the matter. Thus, this decision not to call it a ‘genocide’ is intrinsically linked to the maintenance of a very different narrative regarding the events themselves and is a tool aiming to prevent the acknowledgment of the extent of the devastation recorded by most non-Turkish historians.
But national narratives differing regarding war crimes is not something that is exclusively reserved to the rather well-known case of Armenia and Turkey. Indeed, Sino-Japanese relations are still strained to this day by very controversial Japanese positions concerning the “Nanjing Massacre” or the “Rape of Nanjing” which in Japan is sometimes referred to as the “Nanjing incident.” This case is not quite as clear as the case of the Armenia-Turkey disagreements. Indeed, Japan has been largely criticized for its unclear position, with varying positions from an acknowledgment of the Tokyo Trials and remorse for the suffering caused during WWII to an outright denial of the “Nanjing Massacre.” This public debate and division is all the more relevant to Japan’s international relations, within which it has maintained an unclear discourse. While it has apologized in general terms for Imperial Japan’s policies and actions, “many Japanese apologies have looked like “one step forward, one step backward.” Moreover, the lack of a unified messaging has led to questionable word choices such as referring to the “so-called Nanjing massacre” and has even seen the denial of certain Japanese war crimes. Thus, the lack of clear terminology and strategic uncertainty of positioning has led to the possibility of denials and belittling of war crimes which have affected Sino-Japanese relations.
In a more recent and still very open wound, we can also consider the case of the Bosnian genocide. This refers to the massacre of Srebrenica in July 1995 which was ruled by the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia a Genocide. It occurred during the Bosnian War, where Bosnian Serb forces committed grave human rights violations and war crimes. Despite such international recognition, Bosnian Serb Politicians have largely denied such crimes, and have recently adopted a report denying the genocidal nature of the massacre. This comes in a context of great disagreement with a UN resolution to commemorate the Srebrenica Genocide by Serbian and Bosnian Serbs. This only serves to highlight that terminology arguments are crucial tools in the hands of genocide deniers and ultimately still have massive repercussions on Bosnian society thirty years after the events. This case is a prime example of the critical importance such terms hold and the real impact they can have.
While all of these historical cases are immensely important and still have repercussions to this day, they also serve as a warning sign of the dangers of unclear terminology or intentionally untrue naming of grave events. It seems only fitting to look from such events to current war crimes, human rights violations and potential crimes against humanity whose terms are still under discussion such as the case of Uyghurs in China and the war in Gaza. If we understand that proper wording can strongly impact policy and recognition of the suffering of persecuted peoples, then it becomes all the clearer why so many are arguing on whether the war in Gaza constitutes a genocide, and whether the treatment of Uyghurs is a crime against humanity. Though in these two cases the final rulings are not given, both the ICJ’s indications of measures to be taken to prevent a potential genocide and the UN’s report accusing China of potential crimes against humanity indicate a high chance of such crimes having been committed and have led to no acknowledgment on the part of Israel or China. Such lack of impact of international warnings and refusal to acknowledge the terms used by both parties highlights a consistency in patterns of denial of crimes and seems all the easier to read through given such historical context.
As a post scriptum, I feel that I must explain the lack of inclusion of a very well-known denial, and that is Holocaust denial. This is indeed a critical issue that merits being addressed. However, as I mentioned at the beginning, I did not have extensive space to delve into all cases of denial, and I found it to be far more interesting to focus on less well-known issues that have less media attention and deserve to be recognized. This does not in any way take away from the importance of Holocaust denial and of course we should consider a far wider range of events than the selected cases of this article when considering the real impact of terminology disagreements and denial.
Photo credits: Diane_Krauthamer on Flickr