Genocidal intent

Genocidal intent is the mens rea for the crime of genocide.[1] "Intent to destroy" is one of the elements of the crime of genocide according to the 1948 Genocide Convention. There are some analytic differences between the concept of intent under national criminal law, where responsibility for a murder is ascribed to an individual based on their mental state, and international law. Under international law, responsibility falls upon individuals in their capacities as members of certain organizations or other official roles. The intent for genocide is less direct. An international court might look at whether the defendant participated in planning the genocidal acts, perhaps within the auspices of a certain organizational structure, or whether they acted with knowledge of such a preconceived plan.[1]

"Intent to destroy" redirects here. For the film, see Intent to Destroy.

The Tribunal for Rwanda, in one of their cases, decided that it was not enough for a defendant to know that their acts could contribute to the destruction of a group. Scholars have suggested that the individual's role within an institution can impact the weight given to an individual's knowledge. In order to prosecute of an individual in the context of a genocide, their complicity in forming the "institutional intent" must also be proved.[2] The International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and International Court of Justice have ruled that, in the absence of a confession, genocidal intent can be proven with circumstantial evidence, especially "the scale of atrocities committed, their general nature, in a region or a country, or furthermore, the fact of deliberately and systematically targeting victims on account of their membership of a particular group, while excluding the members of other groups."[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

Cases

In 2010, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal referred to the precedent of the ICTR in discussing the role of genocidal intent.[16]

In the case of a 2004 United Nations Commission of Inquiry into the War in Darfur, Claus Kress argued that the ICTY and ICTR were incorrect in their view of the genocidal intent of individuals.[17] Hans Vest argued for the interlinked roles of an individual's intent and the individual's expectation of contributing to a collective action.[18] Kjell Anderson discussed ways of separating out the roles of collective policies and their interaction with individual intent.[19]

Olaf Jenssen disagreed with the lack of sentencing Goran Jelisić for genocidal intent, arguing that legal consistency would imply that some of the perpetrators of the Holocaust would not have been convicted for genocide.[20]

In February 2021, while the Tigray War was in its fourth month, peace researcher Kjetil Tronvoll stated that the Eritrean Defence Forces' acts of widespread and systematic executions of Tigrayan civilians, especially men and boys, sexual violence against Tigrayan women, looting and destruction of infrastructure and food resources, and looting and destruction of Tigrayan cultural heritage, together seemed to show a pattern that might establish genocidal intent.[21]

Denial

Edina Bećirević studied whether there was a "special intent" by the Serbian political leadership to exterminate Bosnian Muslims as early as 1992" in the Bosnian War.[22]

See also

References
  1. Thomas W. Simon (2016). Genocide, Torture and Terrorism: Ranking International Crimes and Justifying Humanitarian Intervention. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-349-56169-8.
  2. Thomas W. Simon (2016). Genocide, Torture and Terrorism: Ranking International Crimes and Justifying Humanitarian Intervention. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-349-56169-8.
  3. Lattanzi, Flavia (2018). "The Armenian Massacres as the Murder of a Nation?". The Armenian Massacres of 1915–1916 a Hundred Years Later: Open Questions and Tentative Answers in International Law. Springer International Publishing. pp. 27–104 [65–66]. ISBN 978-3-319-78169-3.
  4. Clark, Janine Natalya (2015). "Elucidating the Dolus Specialis: An Analysis of ICTY Jurisprudence on Genocidal Intent". Criminal Law Forum. 26 (3–4): 497–531. doi:10.1007/s10609-015-9260-5. S2CID 143072669.
  5. Smith, Roger W. (1999). "State Power and Genocidal Intent: On the Uses of Genocide in the Twentieth Century". Studies in Comparative Genocide. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 3–14. ISBN 978-1-349-27348-5.
  6. Nersessian, David L. (2002). "The Contours of Genocidal Intent: Troubling Jurisprudence from the International Criminal Tribunals". Texas International Law Journal. 37: 231.
  7. Campbell, Jason J. (2012). On the Nature of Genocidal Intent. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-7847-8.
  8. Kim, Sangkul (2016). A Collective Theory of Genocidal Intent. Springer. ISBN 978-94-6265-123-4.
  9. "Three Responses to 'Can There Be Genocide Without the Intent to Commit Genocide?'". Journal of Genocide Research. 10 (1): 111–133. 2008. doi:10.1080/14623520701850955. S2CID 216136915.
  10. Lewy, Guenter (2007). "Can there be genocide without the intent to commit genocide?". Journal of Genocide Research. 9 (4): 661–674. doi:10.1080/14623520701644457. S2CID 57334327.
  11. Aydin, Devrim (2014). "The Interpretation of Genocidal Intent under the Genocide Convention and the Jurisprudence of International Courts". The Journal of Criminal Law. 78 (5): 423–441. doi:10.1350/jcla.2014.78.5.943. S2CID 144141503.
  12. Behrens, Paul (2015). "Between Abstract Event and Individualized Crime: Genocidal Intent in the Case of Croatia". Leiden Journal of International Law. 28 (4): 923–935. doi:10.1017/S0922156515000503. S2CID 152124051.
  13. Singleterry, Douglas (2010). ""Ethnic Cleansing" and Genocidal Intent: A Failure of Judicial Interpretation?". Genocide Studies and Prevention. 5 (1): 39–67. doi:10.3138/gsp.5.1.39.
  14. Dojčinović, Predrag (2016). "The chameleon of mens rea and the shifting guises of culture-specific genocidal intent in international criminal proceedings". Journal of Human Rights. 15 (4): 454–476. doi:10.1080/14754835.2015.1127139. S2CID 148074049.
  15. Ambos, Kai (2009). "What does 'intent to destroy' in genocide mean?". International Review of the Red Cross. 91 (876): 833–858. doi:10.1017/S1816383110000056.
  16. Park, Ryan (2010). "Proving Genocidal Intent: International Precedent and ECCC Case 002" (PDF). Rutgers Law Review. 63: 129.
  17. Kress, Claus (2005). "The Darfur Report and Genocidal Intent". Journal of International Criminal Justice. 3 (3): 562–578. doi:10.1093/jicj/mqi054.
  18. Vest, H. (2007). "A Structure-Based Concept of Genocidal Intent". Journal of International Criminal Justice. 5 (4): 781–797. doi:10.1093/jicj/mqm036.
  19. Anderson, Kjell (2019). "Judicial Inference of the 'Intent to Destroy'". Journal of International Criminal Justice. 17 (1): 125–150. doi:10.1093/jicj/mqz025.
  20. Jensen, Olaf (2013). "Evaluating genocidal intent: the inconsistent perpetrator and the dynamics of killing". Journal of Genocide Research. 15 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1080/14623528.2012.759396. S2CID 146191450.
  21. Tronvoll, Kjetil (2021-02-27). "Is Eritrea's war in Tigray genocidal?". Eritrea Hub. Archived from the original on 2021-02-27. Retrieved 2021-02-28.
  22. Bećirević, Edina (2010). "The Issue of Genocidal Intent and Denial of Genocide: A Case Study of Bosnia and Herzegovina". East European Politics and Societies and Cultures. 24 (4): 480–502. doi:10.1177/0888325410377655. S2CID 145744538.
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