Genocide Studies
Pathways Ahead
Pathways Ahead
In recent years, the world has been shaken by numerous events that have caused and continue to cause massive human suffering, from the COVID-19 pandemic to intrastate and interstate armed conflicts. Moreover, climate change continues to plow ahead, contributing to growing tensions, population movements, and resource scarcity. Meanwhile, the methods by which groups and group life are threatened, and the means by which violence is incited and perpetrated, continue to evolve. Such divergent crises, even when they overlap or intersect, confound definition and label. This book seeks not to answer the question, "What is genocide?" but rather "What is Genocide Studies?" When Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide in 1944 he could not have foreseen what the world would look like today. Now is the time to think about current manifestations of genocide and those likely to emerge in the future
In this paradigm-shifting collection, Jeffrey Bachman assembles authors who are prepared to transcend the boundaries of conventional thinking about genocide. What the 'destruction of nations' means in the age of climate change, pandemics, machine-driven killing, and other challenges to the existence and flourishing of humans is radically rethought in Genocide Studies: Pathways Ahead.." |
| THE POLITICS OF GENOCIDE
From the Genocide Convention to the Responsibility to Protect (2022)
From the Genocide Convention to the Responsibility to Protect (2022)
Beginning with the negotiations that concluded with the unanimous adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948, and extending to the present day, the United States, Soviet Union/Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France have put forth great effort to ensure that they will not be implicated in the crime of genocide. If this were to fail, they have also ensured that holding any of them accountable for genocide will be practically impossible. By situating genocide prevention in a system of territorial jurisdiction; by excluding protection for political groups and acts constituting cultural genocide from the Genocide Convention; by controlling when genocide is meaningfully named at the Security Council; and by pointing the responsibility to protect in directions away from any of the P-5, they have achieved what can only be described as practical impunity for genocide. The Politics of Genocide is the first book to explicitly demonstrate how the permanent member nations have exploited the Genocide Convention to isolate themselves from the reach of the law, marking them as "outlaw states."
In The Politics of Genocide, Jeffrey S. Bachman conducts an unsparing analysis of the United Nations (UN) Genocide Convention’s formulation in 1947-48 and subsequent selective application by the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Decrying the orchestrated 'culture of impunity for genocide,' this book is a necessary corrective to the view that the Genocide Convention has humanized world politics." |
A rigorous and revisionist study of how framings of genocide, and applications of the relevant international law, granted effective impunity to the world's most powerful state actors -- and still do. Bachman's book is readable and accessible. It serves as an excellent complement and counterweight to standard treatments of this vital subject." |
| THE UNITED STATES AND GENOCIDE
(Re)defining the Relationship (2017)
(Re)defining the Relationship (2017)
There exists a dominant narrative that essentially defines the US’ relationship with genocide through what the US has failed to do to stop or prevent genocide, rather than through how its actions have contributed to the commission of genocide. This narrative acts to conceal the true nature of the US’ relationship with many of the governments that have committed genocide since the Holocaust, as well as the US’ own actions. In response, this book challenges the dominant narrative through a comprehensive analysis of the US’ relationship with genocide.
The analysis is situated within the broader genocide studies literature, while emphasizing the role of state responsibility for the commission of genocide and the crime’s ancillary acts. The book addresses how a culture of impunity contributes to the resiliency of the dominant narrative in the face of considerable evidence that challenges it. My narrative presents a far darker relationship between the US and genocide, one that has developed from the start of the Genocide Convention’s negotiations and has extended all the way to present day, as can be seen in the relationships the US maintains with potentially genocidal regimes, from Saudi Arabia to Myanmar.
This book will be of interest to scholars, postgraduates, and students of genocide studies, US foreign policy, and human rights. A secondary readership may be found in those who study international law and international relations.
The analysis is situated within the broader genocide studies literature, while emphasizing the role of state responsibility for the commission of genocide and the crime’s ancillary acts. The book addresses how a culture of impunity contributes to the resiliency of the dominant narrative in the face of considerable evidence that challenges it. My narrative presents a far darker relationship between the US and genocide, one that has developed from the start of the Genocide Convention’s negotiations and has extended all the way to present day, as can be seen in the relationships the US maintains with potentially genocidal regimes, from Saudi Arabia to Myanmar.
This book will be of interest to scholars, postgraduates, and students of genocide studies, US foreign policy, and human rights. A secondary readership may be found in those who study international law and international relations.
This book...reopens the academic debate on a relatively under-researched question: the role of the United States in the perpetration and prevention of mass violence and more specifically genocide. Very critical of the American authorities, the book is nonetheless based on a solidly argumentation and, in the end, is quite convincing." |
| CULTURAL GENOCIDE
Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations (2019)
Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations (2019)
Through a systematic approach and comprehensive analysis, international and interdisciplinary contributors from the fields of genocide studies, legal studies, criminology, sociology, archaeology, human rights, colonial studies, and anthropology examine the legal, structural, and political issues associated with cultural genocide. This includes a series of geographically representative case studies from the USA, Brazil, Australia, West Papua, Iraq, Palestine, Iran, and Canada.
This volume is unique in its interdisciplinarity, regional coverage, and the various methods of cultural genocide represented, and will be of interest to scholars of genocide studies, cultural studies and human rights, international law, international relations, indigenous studies, anthropology, and history.
This volume is unique in its interdisciplinarity, regional coverage, and the various methods of cultural genocide represented, and will be of interest to scholars of genocide studies, cultural studies and human rights, international law, international relations, indigenous studies, anthropology, and history.
Jeffrey Bachman and his colleagues are to be commended for this important and significant addition to our growing realization of the importance of cultural genocide in keeping with Raphael Lemkin’s own understanding that it cannot be divorced from physical annihilation or extermination. These essays encompass such diverse geographies as the United States, Brazil. Australia, West Papua, Iraq, Palestine, Canada, but further broaden our framework to include law, both nation-state and international, thus providing readers with a resource from which to carry the larger question of "what constitutes genocide" forward in this 21st century. The time has now come to revisit the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and secure an amendment to now include cultural genocide as well. This text will go a long way towards making that happen." |
If the category of cultural rights has been called the 'Cinderella of the human rights family,' could the same be said about its conceptual relative, cultural genocide? That would be overstating it, although growing interest in the latter is a welcome development. Largely as a result of the return to Lemkin in genocide scholarship since the 2000s, the definitional center of gravity in the field has slowly yet surely shifted from a narrower conception of genocide as mass murder towards a broader one based on social destruction. Yet even if the cultural genocide concept has come in from the cold, it is still not enjoying a moment in the sun. Jeffrey Bachman’s edited volume, Cultural Genocide: Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations, is a testament to how far the emerging research agenda on cultural genocide has come, as well as how far it still has to go....In sum, there is an urgent need for this book, as the emerging research agenda on cultural genocide faces a world where patterns of cultural genocide appear to be normal, even fundamental." |