The Genocide Name Game: The Case for Crimes Against Humanity To Prevent Genocide

Abstract

A consistent thorn in the side of United States and Turkey’s relations relates to events that transpired a century ago. Not infrequently, the United States Congress debates resolutions connected to the early twentieth-century Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire. These resolutions vary from labeling the atrocities genocide, to commemorating the victims of the genocide, to calling on Turkey to acknowledge genocide. In each of these instances, Turkey has bristled at the word “genocide,” often reminding the United States of the importance of good relations between the two countries. Turkey has, in fact, spent millions of dollars lobbying the U.S Department of Justice “to convey the seriousness of the genocide issue and the potential threat it poses to U.S.-Turkish relations.” That the Armenian genocide was perpetrated more than a century ago by the Ottoman Empire, a ruling force that has been extinct for almost as long, seems to be of little matter to the Turkish government; for Turkey, any connection to the term “genocide” is a non-starter.

I start with this anecdote because it highlights the politicization of the term “genocide.” Undoubtedly, Turkey wishes that any acknowledgement of Ottoman abuses against the Armenians would disappear; however, the term “genocide” has a potency that can jeopardize fragile diplomatic relations. Turkey’s response reflects the widespread belief that genocide, unlike other mass atrocities, such as war crimes or crimes against humanity, is the “crime of all crimes.” The term “genocide,” with its historical connotations to the Holocaust and gas chambers, and its contemporary conflation with the necessity to intervene, is provocative. While sounding the alarm for genocide can call the world to attention regarding ongoing abuses, the term “genocide” can shut the door to diplomacy that could quell mass abuses and often catalyzes a superfluous debate over whether the abuses constitute genocide. In these ways, the term “genocide” frustrates genocide prevention.

To be sure, the Ottoman hostility against Armenians was genocide and historians, human rights activists, and government officials should rightly call it so. However, in instances of ongoing abuses that appear to meet the criteria of genocide, the triggering effect of the term “genocide” can hinder effective action to stem the abuses. If policymakers, human rights activists, and international bodies are serious about preventing ongoing abuses, it is most prudent for them to move away from using the term “genocide” and adopt the less fraught “crimes against humanity” to describe ongoing abuses.

This article argues that use of the term “crimes against humanity” is a more effective prevention tool than using the term “genocide.” Given the political realities around the term “genocide,” politicians, policy makers, human rights activists, and others who are committed to stopping ongoing genocide should describe the atrocities as crimes against humanity.

Keywords: genocide, crimes against humanity, responsibility to protect, foreign policy, international criminal law