Genocide, a Core International Crime Diane Marie Amann University of Georgia School of Law

Overview Among the core crimes over which the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction is genocide. Twentieth century jurist Raphaël Lemkin coined the term from a Greek word for “race or tribe” and a Latin suffix for “killing.” The Rome Statute’s definition – adopted verbatim from the 1948 Convention against Genocide – extends the criminal prohibition to killings and other enumerated harms, but only if the perpetrator is proved beyond reasonable doubt to have possessed the requisite specific intent against one of four named groups. Since the post-Cold War revival of international criminal jurisdiction, these requirements have tended to preclude convictions for genocide even in circumstances where the crime appears to have occurred. This presentation examines this phenomenon, paying particular heed to the Darfur region of Sudan, the only situation to date in which the ICC Prosecutor has charged genocide.

Resources Diane Marie Amann, “Group Mentality, Expressivism, and Genocide,” International Criminal Law Review 2(2): 93–143, 2002   Prosecutor v. Al Bashir, Case No. ICC-02/05-01/09-94, Second Decision on the Prosecution’s Application for a Warrant of Arrest (Pre-Trial Chamber I, 12 July 2010)   Joshua Kaiser & John Hagan, “Gendered Genocide: The Socially Destructive Process of Genocidal Rape, Killing, and Displacement in Darfur,” Law & Society Review 49(1): 69–107, 2015

Further reading William A. Schabas, Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes (2d ed., 2009) William A. Schabas, The International Criminal Court: A Commentary on the Rome Statute 119-36 (2010)