The U.K.'s Failure to Recognize Genocide
- Genocide Watch
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
The UK’s Failure to Recognize Genocide
By Dr. Gregory Stanton
Founding President
Genocide Watch
For years, the lawyers in the UK’s Foreign Office have refused to recognize mass killing as genocide until a court determines that genocide has occurred. This refusal to recognize genocide is legal malpractice.
The Genocide Convention is named the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Nothing in the Genocide Convention requires that a court determine that genocide has been committed before government policy makers may use the term “genocide.”
The International Court of Justice in Bosnia v Serbia held that Serbia violated the Genocide Convention because it did not prevent the Srebrenica genocide. The ICJ also held that the duty to prevent is a “peremptory norm” that applies erga omnes (obliges all states.) Waiting for a court to declare genocide means violation of the duty to prevent genocide.
Courts to try perpetrators of genocide are seldom created until a genocide is over. Waiting for a court to determine that genocide has been committed means that use of the term nearly always comes too late to prevent it.
Courts have no special expertise in the law of genocide. Judges are not high priests endowed with the sacred duty to determine the commission of genocide.
By making “genocide” a sacred term that can only be invoked by courts, the UK is surrendering its foreign policy to courts, and to the lawyers in the UK Foreign Office.
UK Foreign Office lawyers’ refusal to use the word genocide until genocide is declared by a court means that the UK will nearly always violate its duty to prevent genocide.
Genocide is a term defined by the binding law of an international treaty. Weaker terms like “ethnic cleansing” or “atrocities” are not prohibited by any international treaty. They are not even crimes under international law. They are terms used to avoid using the term genocide.
Use of the term genocide as opposed to terms like crimes against humanity, “ethnic cleansing”, or “atrocities” has a significant effect on whether forceful action will be taken to prevent the crimes. See: Stanton, "Ethnic Cleansing" is a Euphemism Used for Genocide Denial.
When a weaker term is used, it is a sign that there will be no forceful action to stop the mass killing. When the killings are called “genocide”, forceful military action to stop it is much more likely. See: Stanton, Weak Words Are Not Enough. [See: Blum, Stanton, Sagi & Richter, “Ethnic cleansing” bleaches the atrocities of genocide.
Genocide is a term that should be applicable in determination of foreign policy. If the term cannot be spoken, its power to define events and to determine policy is lost.
Genocide is a term that should be available to political policy makers, not just to courts and Foreign Office lawyers. By ceding a monopoly on the term “genocide” to courts and Foreign Office lawyers, the UK Foreign Minister is handing them control over UK foreign policy. Foreign Office lawyers should be advising, rather than dictating, UK foreign policy.
By refusing to use the term “genocide” because courts haven’t declared it, the UK Foreign Minister has become a genocide denier.
Denial of genocide begins when genocide starts and may last for over a hundred years. Genocide denial is the most predictive early warning of further and future genocide.
The UK’s failure to recognize genocide announces the UK’s Refusal to Prevent genocide as required by the Genocide Convention.
It allows UK leaders to avoid their responsibility to align UK policy with international law.
It provides the UK public with an excuse for non-action to protect lives of fellow human beings.
It washes the hands of UK leaders from their duty to prevent genocide.
The UK must officially recognize and declare the massacres committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) against the Sudanese people to be genocide.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is actively facilitating and benefiting from the ongoing conflict in Sudan. The UK is fully aware that their Gulf ally is supplying arms to the genocidal RSF. The UK must cease shielding the UAE from criticism and fulfill its responsibilities under the Genocide Convention. Imposing sanctions on the UAE is a necessary step, but it is by no means sufficient.
As the UN Security Council "penholder" on Sudan, the UK has a responsibility to take concrete, decisive action to end the suffering and genocide in Sudan. The UK must urgently call for the deployment of a UN/AU intervention force to protect civilians and restore stability.
The UK must support the establishment of a civilian administration in Sudan because neither the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) nor the RSF are fit to govern Sudan. The SAF’s track record as part of the Bashir regime demonstrates its opposition to a democratic and pluralist political system.
Dr. Gregory Stanton is Founding President of Genocide Watch and Chair of the Alliance Against Genocide. He was a Research Professor in Genocide Studies at George Mason University and was the James Farmer Professor in Human Rights at the University of Mary Washington. He founded the Cambodian Genocide Project in 1982. In the State Department, he drafted the UN Security Council Resolutions that established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He wrote the rules of procedure for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. He holds degrees from Oberlin College, Harvard Divinity School, Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago.