Genocide after 1948: 70 Years of Genocide Convention

International conference organised by the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies.

7-8 December 2018, Amsterdam, NL

On 9 December 1948, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Despite this commitment to prevent genocide and punish its perpetrators, several cases of genocide have occurred since, e.g. in Asia, Africa, and the European mainland itself. Millions of people have been categorically murdered on account of their real or perceived group identity – national, ethnic, racial, religious, political. What kind of impact(s) did the Convention have, and what type of changes were relevant in the postwar period? This multi-disciplinary conference will bring together historians, social scientists, and others, to explore the causes, courses, and consequences of genocide from a global perspective.

Programme:

Friday 7 December 2018

17:00 Welcoming Remarks
17:15 Keynote: Alexander Hinton, “Genocide as Pharmacon: Prevention as Poison, Prevention as Cure”
18:00 Q&A

Saturday 8 December 2018

9:30-11:00, Panel I: Conceptual Perspectives (chair: Nanci Adler)

• Dirk Moses, “The Crime of Crimes? The Costs of Hierarchy in International Criminal Law”
• Anton Weiss-Wendt, “Not My Crime: The Great Powers Negotiating the Genocide Convention, 1946-48”
• Ingjerd Brakstad, “Cultural Genocide, Truth Commissions and Public Awareness of the Genocide Convention”
• Jeremy Sarkin & Grażyna Baranowska, “Enforced Disappearances and Genocide”

11:00 Coffee

11:15-12:45, Panel II: Sub-Saharan Africa (chair: Thijs Bouwknegt)

• Bert Ingelaere, “Trust in the Aftermath of Mass Violence: Insights from Rwandan and Burundian Life Histories”
• Solange Fontana, “What’s ethnicity got to do with it? Mobilization, Violence and Social Relations in Eastern D.R. Congo”
• Clemence Pinaud, “Violence against civilians in South Sudan: From multi-ethnic cleansing to genocide”
• Ornella Rovetta, “A Tribunal Between Utopia and Diplomacy: Judging the Genocide against the Tutsi (1994-2015)”

12:45 Lunch

14:00-15:30, Panel III: South East Asia (chair: Eveline Buchheim)

• Simon Yin, “China’s Role in the Cambodian Genocide”
• Stephanie Benzaquen, “A Visual History of the ‘Cambodian Genocide’”
• Grace Leksana, “Fifty-two Years after the 1965 Genocide: A Micro Study in a Javanese Village”
• Patrick Hein, “A Comparative Perspective on Collective Violence in South East Asia”

15:30 Coffee

15:45-17:15, Panel IV: Perpetration (chair: Barbora Holá)

• Kjell Anderson, “Is Killing Difficult? Reflections from Perpetrator Research”
• Marcia Esparza, “Civic Action: Reiterations of Colonialism”
• Ayhan Işık, “Paramilitary Violence in Turkey: The 1992 Massacre in Cizre”
• Iva Vukušić, “Paramilitary Violence in the ICTY Archives”

17:15 Reflections (Uğur Ümit Üngör)

17:30 END