Law of denial

Law’s claim of mastery over past political violence is frequently undermined by reversals of that relationship of mastery, so that the violence of the law, and especially its symbolic violence, becomes easily incorporated into longues durées of political violence, rather than mastering them, settling them, or providing closure. Doing justice to the past, therefore, requires a political and theoretical attunement to the ways in which law, in purportedly attempting to address past political violence, inscribes itself into contemporary contexts of violence. While this may be limited to an analysis of how law is an effect of and affects the political, theoretically this attunement can be further refined by means of a critique of dynamics that are internal to law itself and that have to do with how law understands its own historicity, as well as its relationship to history and historiography. This article aims to pursue such a critique, taking as its immediate focus the ECHR case of Perinçek v Switzerland, with occasional forays into debates around the criminalisation of Armenian genocide denialism in France. The Perinçek case concerned Switzerland's criminalisation of the denial of the Armenian genocide, and concluded in 2015 after producing two judgments, first by the Second Chamber, and then by the Grand Chamber of the ECHR. However, although they both found for the applicant, the two benches had very different lines of reasoning, and notably different conceptions regarding the relationship between law and history. I proceed by tracing the shifting status of 'history' and 'historians' in these two judgments, and paying attention to the deferrals, disclaimers and ellipses that structure law's relation to history. This close reading offers the opportunity for a critical reappraisal of the relationship between law, denial and violence: I propose that the symbolic violence of the law operative in memory laws is a product of that which remains unresolved in law's understanding of historicity (including its own), its self-understanding vis-à-vis the task of historiography, and its inability to respond to historical violence without inscribing itself into a history of violence, a process regarding which it remains in denial

Requiem for the Prevention of Genocide in Our Time: Working toward an Improbable Possibility but Not Giving Up

In response to the question “Can genocide in our world be stopped to a significant extent,” I answer “yes.” I propose an International Peace Army (IPA) sponsored by a world government that operates rationally, based on verified news reports and scientific assessments, to respond to mass murders that are in the beginning stages or threats that are gathering. It is very improbable, however, that genocide in our world will be stopped to a significant extent. Global society is not ready to launch an IPA: humankind is still largely governed by totalitarian magic/faith ideological modes, world government is still too much a theater of power seeking, and human beings are still too immoral— that is, they are not committed resolutely to Life over Death for all people. Nonetheless, we cannot afford to give up. Our developing field of genocide studies needs to emphasize efforts at prevention much more. Even if these turn out to be our flailing end-of-species efforts, for me the effort to stop genocide is what gives greatest meaning to being alive while we are

Worksheet for Describing and Categorizing a Genocidal Event: A New Tool for Assembling More Objective Data and Classifying Events of Mass Killing

A new tool is presented for facilitating greater objectivity in the chaotic field of genocide studies: first, assembling the available factual data about any event of mass murder systematically; second, contextualizing each of our judgments of the nature of the crime as a choice being made by a given scholar or institution (e.g., a specific court), but not as “God’s word.” The Worksheet for Describing and Categorizing a Genocidal Event is believed to be innovative in several ways: (1) This model presents researchers with a methodology for developing systematic, extensive and objective information about many different aspects of an event of mass killing; (2) Emphasis is placed on identifying each researcher’s guiding concept of genocide; (3) The proposed methodology purposely postpones any effort at classification—including whether an event constitutes “genocide”—until after factual data have been assembled; (4) Categorization of an event is also to be understood as an act of judgment by each researcher, not as scientifically established truth; (5) It is also to be understood that classification in the language of social sciences is different than legal classifications that in turn also are to be understood as based on whatever specific code of law

Genocide In Our Time : An Annotated Bibliography With Analytical Introductions

Genocide is a modern term whereby groups of people are killed on the basis of their religion, race, ethnicity, or nationality. This book suggest that modernity and the tremendous social differentiation that is a part of our modern world may, in part, be to blame. The authors examine textbook 20th century horrors: from the massacre of the Armenians, to the planned famine in the Ukraine, to the Holocaust, and links of modern warfare to genocide. By studying cases of genocide, the authors hope to inform and connect to all other efforts to understand and to prevent the mass destruction of human lives. The work of Markusen, Legters, and Palmer focuses on phenomena that are not classically defined as genocide but, since they show many points of intersection, are highly important to the study of genocide. Thus Palmer explores numerous policies towards ethnic minorities worldwide and shows their overt and covert ethnocidal dimensions, while, in the Ukrainian case chosen by Legters, the issue is one of demarcation. Should the Ukrainian famine be viewed as a case involving an economic catastrophe, as a political conflict, as ethnocide, as mass killing, or as genocide? How were these dimensions connected or could they have been? Linkages are also the theme of Markusen\u27s investigation, which looks at the possible connections between modern war and genocide, particularly as it concerns the nature of modern war and its social, psychological, and organizational foundations in modernity. Aspects of the latter are also used by Dobkowski and by Rosenberg and Silverman in their analyses of the Holocaust. Dobkowski views the Holocaust as the paradigmatic genocide. It introduced an unprecedented technological mass killing. It represents a kind of ultimate confrontation with death, faceless and unmediated. Rosenberg and Silverman further demonstrate the criteria under which the Holocaust can be viewed as a unique event. Adalian describes in detail the methods by which the Turkish genocide against the Armenians has been covered up, excused, and denied. Simultaneously, we obtain a good account of the event itself, including some of its causes and consequences. Finally, the manner and dynamic in which the Armenian genocide has been articulated, relativized, and denied can serve in the development of intervention strategies and early warning systems such as those that Charny proposes in his essay.https://surface.syr.edu/books/1029/thumbnail.jp