New York—The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN in 1948 and it recently held a panel discussion, From Prevention to Protection: The Genocide Convention 65 Years On to examine its effects.

Several of the panelists said that the Convention had, for the first time, defined genocide as a new class of crime under international law. The speakers referred with respectful admiration to Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer who coined the term genocide in 1944 in his work, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, and warmly welcomed more recent generations of the Lemkin family to the event. Lemkin had been instrumental in having the convention adopted by the UN.

Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary general, could not attend, but stopped at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps, to pay tribute to its victims, on his way to Nelson Mandela’s funeral in South Africa. Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Relations, proclaimed that “the Convention was a direct response to the Holocaust.”

A large group of intercontinental scholars took months to work out the Convention language, and defined genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing [its] members….; causing serious bodily or mental harm to ….the group; deliberately inflicting ….conditions of life, calculated to bring about [the group’s] physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births ….; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

While Lemkin’s term was used in the Nuremberg Trials, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that about 30 people were indicted for genocide in the Balkans. After several plea bargains and some successful challenges, only 15 men were found guilty by various courts. Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Serbia, died during his trial in 2006, and so received no verdict. In 2007 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide.

The ICJ declared that all states must stop genocide, in areas under their control and, as a community, worldwide. Early warning signs must be recognized, including strongly enforcing all forms of human rights everywhere. This can be fostered by “public awareness and tolerance, and educating people to appreciate diversity as well as commonality. … We must not be silent, but rather must take action to stop hatred, demonization, and discrimination. We must intervene when atrocities are being perpetrated before they escalate to genocide. … Nobody can do everything to eradicate the problems, but everyone can do something. Genocide can be prevented. The UN staff is now scanning the world to detect pre-cursors to genocide. We must also develop plans for early action, before the dimensions of the problem grow out of control. We must recognize setbacks and derive lessons from them. We must find mechanisms to enforce human rights and the rule of law. And we must remain vigilant, courageous, and persistent in doing so.”

A main featured speaker was Stuart E. Eisenstat, newly appointed White House Envoy to American Holocaust Survivors, former Ambassador to the European Union and co-negotiator of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (the Claims Conference). He served as President Clinton’s Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State on Holocaust-Era Issues and successfully negotiated major agreements with Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France and other European countries, covering: restitution; payments by states and corporations for slave laborers (mostly non-Jews); looted art; and restitution of unclaimed bank accounts and insurance policies.

Eisenstat said that since the Convention’s adoption, there have been mass murders in Cambodia, the Balkans, Rwanda and Syria, among other locales. The Holocaust shocked the world into confronting these problems because of its unique goals spreading over all of Europe, its unique organization and mechanisms, the fact that the perpetrators diverted resources from their own defenses to continue the mass murders and its sheer scope and size. The Nuremberg Trials established a new set of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and held authorities responsible for civilian deaths. Afterwards another new concept emerged. The war’s losers would have to pay reparations not to the victorious allies, but to the civilians whom they had victimized.

“The collapse of the USSR, in the late 1980s, opened archives on WWII and opened the doors for more research on the Holocaust. New materials were revealed relevant to the judgment on Eichmann and concerning the actions of other perpetrators. These findings were brought to the world-wide public’s attention by such works as ABC’s Holocaust mini-series, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, and Claude Lanzman’s Shoah.”

In the 1970’s, Eisenstat urged President Carter to authorize work on a U.S. Holocaust museum. The result, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the Mall in DC, is one of the most visited sites in Washington, accommodating about 4,000 visitors per day, 3/4 of whom are non-Jews.

“These concessions raised the bar for individuals, private companies, and particularly multi-national companies, and all countries…. There are now a plethora of NGOs monitoring and urging enforcement of many kinds of human rights. Militarized peace-keeping is improving, utilizing regional forces to suppress violations. The International Court of Justice has jurisdiction over mass murders. Countries whose mass killings are over now often convene Truth and Reconciliation panels or courts. This has happened in over 20 countries in recent years. …These processes must continue to advance. And wide-spread international education must be supported on all human rights issues.”

Other speakers, who ranged the gamut from UN officials to journalists, spoke about current and recent genocides. They referenced mass murders and genocides in the Central African Republic, Southern Sudan, Darfur, and Sierra Leone. It was noted that out that “although not all countries have signed the Genocide Convention, including the U.S., all share ‘the responsibility to protect.’”

One speaker said, “The Security Council has proven to be a poor response mechanism, requiring the unanimous agreement of countries with sometimes conflicting interests. An independent mechanism must be established. Clearly early warnings include escalating violence and chaos.”

Another pointed out that in addition to discrimination, “poverty is a breeding ground of hate. And derogatory statements, if allowed to spread, can lead ultimately to genocide.” She also noted that “there can be ‘cultural genocide’ imposed by the restriction of daily activities by totalitarian regimes.”

Mass murder has had a higher death toll than have all wars combined in the past century. In that period, 117 million individuals have been the victims of mass murder and genocide. These are more devastating because the elimination of civilians is their goal. Civilians are their targets.

The case of Armenia was raised by an audience member. He pointed out that Armenia was the case study Lemkin used to develop his ideas. A Consul of the Turkish Mission to the UN objected, saying that Turkey is seeking to dialog with Armenians to reach a common understanding of the events during and after WWI.

A nearby third-floor exhibition on the Holocaust consisted of large posters arranged in a highly trafficked corridor. The posters included one on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a detailed Timeline of 50 significant events that occurred between 1933 and 2007 and a map of Main Camps & Killing Sites During the Nazi Era, whose source was Yad Vashem., At the Palestine Exhibit on the first floor, there was no cause listed for the Israeli War of Independence, but there is reference to some of the “illegal construction” in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Viewers were left to draw their own conclusions.

By Stephen Tencer