It is very common to encounter outcries against ‘crimes against humanity’ or ‘genocides’ in the media today, which is a phenomenon not seen prior to WWII. What is your reaction to the increasing awareness of such acts—is it being translated into meaningful political and legal action, or is it just another way to frame conventional political power plays?

The increase in awareness, I believe, is a double-edged sword that should be regarded with caution. As much as it is prompted by positive objectives, a widespread awareness without a concrete understanding often prompts inappropriate action. Take the Save Darfur campaign in the United States, for example. Most people think intervention is the right action to take; however on closer analysis, it may not be the case. My colleague Alex de Waal, who spent a long time in Darfur even before the publicized events happened, points out that the cry for hasty intervention might have made it harder to reach a comprehensive peace settlement. Many people do not understand that violence in Darfur is not an isolated event, and is part of a broader, more complex picture.

The political pressure behind such an increase in awareness could indeed be politicized. The political debate about whether an event is genocide is often driven by outside factors not directly related to the actual definition of genocide. For instance, the cry for intervention in Sudan could be a good excuse for some people who desire regime change in the area. The naming of the event itself becomes politicized as well. Calling something 'genocide,' especially in the minds of some creates an obligation under international law to somehow intervene. However, the Genocide Convention of 1948 does not demand active intervention—it says the member states should respond “as they consider appropriate”, which could be just sending a fax.

Ultimately, however, I do think the increase in awareness can be translated into meaningful action.

Since the Genocide Convention (GC), the world seems to have only proven itself able to respond to atrocities after they occur in the form of criminal tribunals. Is it possible to rescue the Genocide Convention and the idea of human rights from the clutch of cynics who say that governments will only intervene if their interests are at stake?

You suggested in the second part of the question that these implementations happened only after the event. I think this is certainly true: the Genocide Convention will not help prevent atrocities, and this is something we ought to just accept. The GC is not there to label conflicts as a whole, but is actually an instrument created in order to make it possible to punish individual defendants who have perpetrated genocide. This is the only function of this convention, and I think it is not very good at averting genocide. My personal belief is that, in the long run, with serious and sophisticated developments in international criminal law, [the Convention] may contribute to making genocide costlier. However, I do not believe that international law can do anything to prevent genocide, or even contribute much to “the maintenance of international peace and security.” By inserting this phrase into the Security Council resolutions that established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, both of which are based on Chapter VII of the UN Charter, we created expectations that simply cannot be fulfilled. So I think much of the disappointment we see today among human rights activists vis-à-vis international law and international actions has to do with the fact that expectations were inflated. We simply expected too much in response to these atrocities; we had no knowledge, expertise, or legal means by which to address any of these things.

Perhaps the previous question was based on a popular assumption that intervention should be the response of governments. What do you make of this assumption? Is intervention useful? Are we, as an international community, committing a wrong by avoiding intervention in incidents such as that in Darfur?

I think it would be dangerous to respond in a reckless fashion. Intervention is not necessarily the best way to stop genocide in every situation, and if we do opt to intervene, we have [to deal with] the unintended consequences it may bring. Other scholars have done marvelous work [on this subject]. We have to look at the practice of intervention as well—how many military units does it take? How many platoons do we need to deploy? How long are the deployment times? Many of these things were never taken into account, and some scholars have argued that, in the case of Rwanda, intervention might not have necessarily made a big difference because the majority of the killings happened very early on in the genocide campaign. This is certainly not to say we should not attempt intervention, but we ought to discuss the very practical necessities involved. And in Darfur, holding off international intervention doesn’t mean we should hold off international action—this could involve humanitarian relief efforts and doesn’t necessarily need to alienate the genocidal government, so it might be possible to at least reduce the suffering. However, if you push a stronger response right away, it may cut all lines of communication.

How should we think about nations that are still fighting to have the world recognize their national tragedies as genocides, such as Armenia in regards to the extermination by the Turks in WWI and Ukraine’s man-made famine of 1932-33? Are they going to be successful? Why, if at all, is it important that they keep trying to gain recognition?

It’s a difficult question. As you said, there are groups trying to define current events as genocide to gain certain recognition for their ongoing suffering, or to retroactively label violence committed by colonial governments as genocide. I think all of these issues ought to be discussed openly, which is not to say that all atrocities must be called genocidal. There is an inbuilt assumption, and I would imagine that this assumption comes from the Holocaust, that there is a hierarchy of crimes. I do agree that there is a hierarchy of crimes, but there is no hierarchy of suffering—this is something that should be divorced, which is very difficult.