Panel Discusses Genocide Convention

The ramifications of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, as well as today’s anti-genocide initiatives, were discussed in a commemorative speech given by Visiting Professor of Law Richard J. Goldstone, followed by a panel discussion yesterday evening.

The event, “The Genocide Convention at 60 Years: New Challenges or the Same Ones?” analyzed legal and humanitarian effects of the post-World War II convention—“its impact, its meaning, its relevance for the next 60 years,” said panel moderator Jennifer Leaning, a Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health professor.

“Genocide was appropriately called by Winston Churchill the crime of crimes,” Goldstone said.

He said that, partly because of the 1948 convention, there is a new ability to anticipate genocide in advance, as a result of technological progress, increased awareness, and historical perspective.

Goldstone has served on many war crime commissions such as the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo. He also served for nine years as a justice on the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

After Goldstone’s keynote address, panelists, including various professors who are members of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, spoke on the same topic.

One of the challenges that prevails is the language of the convention itself, according to assistant professor of government and Social Studies Jens Meierhenrich.

He cited Article 8 of the convention to point out that the agreement recognized genocide but never gave a way to prevent or punish it. “As a document it has become largely insignificant,” Meierhenrich said.

Executive Director of the University Committee on Human Rights Jacqueline Bhabha, also noting flaws, said that the anniversary was not one to be celebrated. “We have moved ourselves into a worse direction as far as the treatment of survivors,” Bhabha said. “I think we fail dramatically, in terms of our response to genocide and our obligation to reconstruct a life and a world for the survivors.”

Bhabha said that since 1948, the anti-genocide movement has not moved forward but backward.

According to Goldstone, it is up to the United States to lead the world against genocide.

“South Africa changed in 24 hours with the election of Nelson Mandela, as the United States has changed in 24 hours with the election of President-elect Obama. It has changed the whole attitude towards the United States from the rest of the world,” Goldstone said.

Goldstone and panel members agreed that the focus must now be on the next 60 years to come, a sentiment that listeners echoed.

“The [convention] is just one tool among other things; it is changing. The case law around it is also changing and we have to look beyond it,” said Nayana

Dhavan, who graduated last year from HSPH.