5. Cases Of Un’S Dealing With Major Human Rights Violations

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Special Procedures

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The UN Human Rights Council's Special Procedures are independent human rights experts who examine issues globally, or focus on specific places, or on particular groups such as human rights defenders or migrants.

The Special Procedures are at the core of the UN human rights machinery. As independent and objective experts who are able to monitor and rapidly respond to allegations of violations occurring anywhere in the world, they play a critical and often unique role in promoting and protecting human rights. They are among the most innovative, responsive and flexible tools of the human rights machinery.

Drawing their authority from the UN Charter, the Special Procedures can respond to allegations of violations occurring anywhere in the world.

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Genocide

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In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group 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
d. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
*-* With this doc. There is NO Monitoring Body = No Enforcement

Hint 2

A crime of intention, not of implementation. If you have the intention to eliminate any certain category of people, no matter the amount of people you actually do kill.

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2 Systems can Establish Genocide

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1. The Security Council
a. The Sec. Council can decide that genocide is taking place. This decision means that you must have a minimum of 9 votes, and 5 of these must be all from the Top 5 Powers.
2. International Criminal Court (ICC)
a. Through its own procedures can decide that genocide is taking place.
-But they have no force behind it, even if they decide that genocide is happening
-This inevitably goes back to the Security Council in order to take action on
genocide

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Genocide Convention.

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The Convention says once you have established that genocide has been declared, or recognized by
the Convention, then it is an obligation by all member states to stop that genocide

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Raphael Lemkin

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The term “Genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin
-Amermenian massacre and the Holocaust
-He was interested in the establishment of “genocide”, the mass killing of people – and wanted it to be
internationally known/ recognized as a international crime.

Hint 5

-It is important to label such crimes as genocide so that the officials will recognize its severity, in addition to the international public, --- and so that people would remember

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Devices UN "force"

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-There are devices here and there in the UN that somehow could insist/ forcefully influence or pressure nations to do as UN says/ uphold human rights

Mechanisms:
-Shaming/ Naming
- Public Ridicule
-Human Rights Committee
-Periodic Review

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1941- UN Charter (Allies):

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: Started drawing up idea that human rights were universal & began drafting that human rights were fundamental

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[UN Action-- Genocide]

-Very little before the end of the Cold War

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-When the Super Powers get entangled in debate on whether something is genocide (or other issue)
then the Security Council gets paralyzed.

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Bosnia (1992-1995)

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-Muslim Genocide

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-Koscovo (1999)

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-This was a relative success as compared to the previous 2 genocides.
- The UN intervened rather quickly. (learned from Rwanda)
-Illegal but legitimate legal action (the UN intervenes, when it is not quite legal because the Security Council has not authorized action, but it is seen as legitimate, necessary)

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[Genocide]
Popular excuses for inaction

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- Principle of nonintervention and neutrality
- Not enough credible information
- The conflict is as two sided and spontaneous
- Possible neg. consequences or no impact
- Can’t intervene selectively

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 Real reason for inaction

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- Lack of will among other states
- Weakness of the international norm on intervention
- Organizational problems
- Lack of individual heroism
US did not intervene because they had swore not to send troops to Africa as a result of the incident in Somalia (Black Hawk Down)

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Genocide... Raphael Lemkin

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but it was not until Raphael Lemkin coined the term and the prosecution of perpetrators of the Holocaust at the Nuremberg trials that the United Nations agreed to the CPPCG which defined the crime of genocide under international law.