Before It’s Too Late:Preventing Genocide by Holding the Territorial State Responsible for Not Taking Preventive Action

It is widely accepted in international law that the responsibility of states for the breach of an obligation to prevent a given event occurs when that event takes place. When applied to the obligation to prevent genocide, it would mean that the breach of that obligation commences when genocide occurs. If that is the case, this would appear to be in conflict with the aim of the rules on the responsibility of states and the aim of the primary rule on the obligation to prevent genocide. This conflict has not been fully addressed in the literature. This contribution examines whether and to what extent under the existing rules of international law on the prevention of genocide it is possible to hold territorial states responsible for the breach of that obligation before genocide occurs or never occurs. It will be argued that international law does not provide a general rule which is applicable to all obligations to prevent and that the moment of the breach depends on the content and nature of each obligation and the event to be prevented. The nature and content of the obligation to prevent genocide dictates that its breach commences at the moment a state fails to do what that obligation requires it to do and not at the moment genocide is committed. The legal consequences of state responsibility for not taking measures to prevent genocide as well as the invocation of the responsibility are addressed, leading to the conclusion that an international mechanism seems to be required to effectively implement the responsibility of the territorial state to prevent genocide

Ending impunity for gender crimes: Access to justice for violence against women and its contribution to sustainable peace building in Rwanda.

This paper seeks to establish the contribution of Accessible justice to ending impunity for violence against women. Consequently, it investigates how far availing legal remedies to victims of violence against women leads to sustainable peace building in Rwanda. In doing so, the study adopts a case of Access to Justice Bureaus- a judicial service established by the government of Rwanda to help people have access to free legal remedies. Based on data collected from fifty five in-depth interviews and six focus group discussions in the four provinces and Kigali city, findings reveal that through free legal representation, community mobilization, formation of gender dialogue groups and multi-sectoral collaboration, Access to Justice Bureaus have played an important role in combatting impunity to violence against women. Conversely, findings also point to a number of challenges that need to be addressed if violence against women is to be fully eradicated

Prevention of genocide under International law : an analysis of the obligations of States and the United Nations to prevent genocide at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels

Genocide is het misdrijf der misdrijven dat het geweten van de mensheid schokt vanwege de onbespreekbare schade en lijden die genocide teweeg brengt. Deze dissertatie draait om het voorkomen van genocide onder het internationaal recht in het algemeen, en analyseert meer in het bijzonder de juridische verplichting om het misdrijf van genocide te voorkomen als verwoord in het Verdrag inzake de Voorkoming en de Bestraffing van Genocide en in het internationaal gewoonterecht. Ondanks het bestaan van deze verplichting in het internationaal recht, is er vanuit de wetenschap en de praktijk nauwelijks aandacht aan de daadwerkelijke inhoud ervan besteed. Huidig academisch onderzoek op dit gebied richt zich voornamelijk op interventie op het moment dat genocide bijna voorhanden is en negeert preventie op eerdere stadia. Dit is problematisch gezien het feit dat preventie op een zo vroeg mogelijk stadium geboden lijkt om de risico op genocide op effectieve wijze te verkleinen. Gebaseerd op onderzoek in andere terreinen en puttend uit de Genocide uitspraak van het Internationaal Gerechtshof uit 2007, maakt het voorliggend onderzoek een onderscheid tussen primaire, secondaire en tertiaire niveaus van preventie. Het analyseert en vervolgens past de verplichting om genocide te voorkomen door staten en de VN toe binnen het temporele kader dat deze niveaus van preventie bieden. Deze dissertatie draagt op twee manieren aan het verhelderen van de juridische verplichting om genocide te voorkomen bij. In de eerste plaats verwijst het naar concrete internationale maatregelen die door staten en de VN kunnen worden aangenomen op ieder niveau van preventie. In de tweede plaats draagt deze dissertatie voorstellen ter verbetering aan zoals het instellen van nationale en internationale mechanismen die actief de voorkoming van genocide bevorderen en er ook toezicht op houden. Genocide is the crime of crimes which shocks the conscience of mankind because of the unspeakable damages and pains it causes. This research investigates the topic of the prevention of that crime under international law and more particularly the extent of the obligation to prevent genocide under the Genocide Convention and customary international law. Although, in public international law there is an obligation to prevent genocide, what this obligation entails has not received much attention in scholarly works and in practice. Even in the recent scholarly debates on this topic, the focus has been on intervention at stages when genocide is about to be committed or is being committed, ignoring prevention at early stages. Yet, prevention at early stages seems to be required in order to effectively reduce risks of genocide. Drawing upon other fields as well as the 2007 Genocide judgment of the International Court of Justice for the analysis of the concept of prevention and the obligation to prevent genocide, this research puts forward a distinction between primary, secondary and tertiary levels of prevention and analyses and applies the obligation to prevent genocide by states and the UN within that temporal structure of prevention. This research contributes to the clarification of the legal obligation to prevent genocide by filling it with concrete international legal means to be taken by states and the UN at each level, and by suggesting improvements which include the creation of national and international institutions to actively promote and monitor the prevention of genocide.