Getting Away With Murder: Genocide and Western State Power
| Author | Philip N.S. Rumney |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.00102 |
| Published date | 01 July 1997 |
| Date | 01 July 1997 |
REVIEW ARTICLE
Getting Away with Murder: Genocide and Western State
Power
Philip N.S. Rumney*
George J. Andreopoulos (ed),Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions,
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994, 265 pp, hb £32.95.
The definition of genocide as contained in the United Nations Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNCG)
1
may not be
everything Ralpael Lemkin worked so hard to achieve.
2
Moreover, any
disappointment he had in the adopted definition of genocide would be exacerbated
by the abject failure of the international community to enforce the Convention
since its inception. This, during a period when the incidence of genocide, in some
regions at least, has increased
3
and when genocide is viewed as an irrelevance in
the exercise of foreign policy by many states who claim to respect human rights
and adhere to the rule of law. Indeed, the ‘contemporary dimension’ (p 1)
4
of
genocide is illustrated by the fact that at the time of writing we are witnessing the
possible acceleration of ethnic killing in Burundi.
5
As a result, some commentators
claim that even with the UNCG ‘humanity remains unprotected from genocide and
mass killings.’
6
Thus, Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions (hereinafter Genocide)
is of great contemporary relevance. The book originated in discussions and
presentations given throughout a one-day conference at the Yale Law School. The
result is a fine collection of essays by authors who offer diverse views as to the
nature and meaning of genocide, and also consider the applicability of the UNCG
to four case studies: Armenia, Kurdistan, East Timor and Cambodia. It is in these
The Modern Law Review Limited 1997 (MLR 60:4, July). Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.594
* De Montfort University Law School.
1 Article II defines genocide as including ‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious groups, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.’
2 Lemkin is credited with initiating ‘a one man crusade for a genocide convention.’ Kuper, Genocide:
Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982) 22. See also
Lemkin’s ‘Genocide’ (1946) 15 The American Scholar 227 for proposed treaty principles and
commentary.
3 Fein, Genocide: A Sociological Perspective (London: Sage, 1993) xiv.
4 All page citations in the text refer to the book under review.
5 ‘Burundi army kills Hutu villagers in wake of coup,’ The Guardian, 30 July 1996, 1.
6 Kutner, ‘A World Genocide Tribunal Rampant Against Further Genocide: Proposal for Planetary
Preventive Measures Supplementing a Genocide Early Warning System’ (1984) 18 Val U L Rev
373, 412.
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