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

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

Victim and Perpetrator Groups’ Divergent Perspectives on Collective Violence: Implications for Intergroup Relations

Groups in conflict develop strikingly different construals of the same violent events. These clashing perceptions of past violence can have detrimental consequences for intergroup relations and might provoke new hostilities. In this article, we integrate and juxtapose what we know about construals of collective violence by delineating the different dimensions along which these construals differ between victim and perpetrator groups: regarding the question of who is the victim, who is responsible for the harm doing, what the perpetrator’s intent was, how severe the violence was, and when it took place. Then, we discuss the individual- and group-level factors (e.g., collective narratives, social identities) that shape these construals, as well as their implications for attitudes regarding the conflict and support for relevant policies. We distinguish two different core motives that drive construals and their outcomes among victim and perpetrator groups: Perpetrator groups try to cope with moral identity threats and preserve a positive image of the ingroup, while victim groups try to protect their ingroup from future harm doing and desire acknowledgment of their group’s experiences. Lastly, we discuss implications for strategies and interventions to address victim and perpetrator groups’ divergent perspectives of collective violence