Is Customary Law on the Prohibition to States to Commit Acts of Genocide Applicable to the Armenian Massacres?

At the time of the massacres commonly known as Metz Yeghérn, did some international unwritten rule exist regarding what is later defined as genocide? If not, does the subsequent coming into being of a customary, peremptory rule have any effect today for Turkey and for all the other contemporary States? The absence of a customary rule prohibiting States from committing genocides at the time of Metz Yeghérn is demonstrated through the analysis of rulings of the International Court of Justice, the preparatory works of the International Law Commission's Articles on the Law of the Treaties and on State Responsibility, the preparatory works of the 1948 Genocide Convention and the behavior of the different States involved during and after the 1915-1916 massacres. The current peremptory rule on the prohibition of genocide is neither retroactive, nor applicable to many of the current behaviors of modern Turkey vis-à-vis Armenians and/or those past events, whose illegality is often questioned on different grounds

Denying the Armenian Genocide in International and European Law

Several international and European legal instruments, both binding and non-binding, call on or allow for the criminalization of speech that denies, condones or minimizes international crimes. The aim of this essay is to verify the extent of those instruments, particularly the definitions of punishable behaviours and the identification of the object/target of such behaviours, with a view to ascertain whether the instruments apply to the Armenian massacres of 1915\u2013191

The Armenian Massacres and the Price of Memory: impossible to forget, forbidden to remember

This contribution is aimed at assessing the right to truth and the right to memory of the Armenian people and of Armenians as individuals, drawing from a legal framework first developed in regional and local contexts and further elaborated at the level of the United Nations. It provides an in-depth picture of the widespread practice concerning the recognition of the massacre of the Armenians in the International Community, which includes various statements and actions by national and international institutions. It also examines the position of Turkey on the matter. As a conclusion, it puts forward some proposals de jure condendo with a view to contribute towards identifying the appropriate instruments to bring Turks and Armenians from conflict to dialogue. This would lead to the achievement of a shared memory based on a reconstruction of the events accepted by both sides, while being respectful of the historical truth

From comparative to international genocide studies: the international production of genocide in 20th-century Europe

Genocide is widely seen as a phenomenon of domestic politics, which becomes of international significance because it offends against international law. Hence there are as yet inadequate International Relations analyses of the production of genocide. This article challenges the idea of the domestic genesis of genocide, and critiques the corresponding approach of ‘comparative genocide studies’ which is dominant in the field. It analyses the emergence of more fruitful ‘relational’ and ‘international’ approaches in critical genocide studies, while identifying the limitations of their accounts of the ‘international system’. As first steps towards an adequate international account, the article then explores questions of the international meaning and construction of genocidal relations, and of international relations as the context of genocide. It argues for a historical and sociological approach to the international relations of genocide, and examines 20th-century European genocide in this light. Arguing for a broader conception of this historical experience than is suggested by an exclusive focus on the Holocaust, the article offers an interpretation of genocide as increasingly endemic and systemic in international relations in the first half of the century. It concludes by arguing that this account offers a starting point, but not a model, for analyses of genocide in global international relations in the 21st centur