Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The 2007-08 Post-Election Crisis in Kenya: A Success Story for the Responsibility to Protect?
- Part I The Emergence of the Responsibility to Protect
- Part II The Responsibility to Protect under International Law
- Part III Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect
- Part IV International Organisations and the Responsibility to Protect
- Part V Implementing the Responsibility to Protect
- Concluding Observations
- List of Contributors
- General Index
- Index of Treaties and Other International Documents
21 - Taking Prevention of Genocide Seriously: Media Incitement to Genocide Viewed in the Light of the Responsibility to Protect
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The 2007-08 Post-Election Crisis in Kenya: A Success Story for the Responsibility to Protect?
- Part I The Emergence of the Responsibility to Protect
- Part II The Responsibility to Protect under International Law
- Part III Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect
- Part IV International Organisations and the Responsibility to Protect
- Part V Implementing the Responsibility to Protect
- Concluding Observations
- List of Contributors
- General Index
- Index of Treaties and Other International Documents
Summary
Introduction
Genocide does not happen spontaneously. Every incident of genocide is preceded by a similar series of processes, which are premeditated and organised. One of the common precursors of genocide seems to be the categorisation of people in groups, dehumanisation of a certain group and the subsequent propagation of what has been termed an ‘extermination belief ’. Incitement, in particular through the media, can play a sinister role in amplifying those processes. From Nazi Germany to Rwanda, the deadly potential of propaganda has been amply illustrated.
In 2009, reflecting on the implementation of RtoP, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reminded us that we cannot afford to ignore the role that incitement – and the failure to act on it in time – has played in major atrocities in recent history:
When a State manifestly fails to prevent such incitement, the international community should remind the authorities of this obligation and that such acts could be referred to the International Criminal Court, under the Rome Statute. ... in cases of imminent or unfolding violence of this magnitude against populations, this message may be more effectively and persuasively delivered in person than from afar. Until recently, however, the practice at the United Nations and in many capitals had too often been to ignore or minimize the signs of looming mass murder. The world body failed to take notice when the Khmer Rouge called for a socially and ethnically homogenous Cambodia with a ‘clean social system’ and its radio urged listeners to ‘purify’ the ‘masses of the people’ of Cambodia. Nor did it respond vigorously to ethnically inflammatory broadcasts and rhetoric in the Balkans in the early 1990s or in Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 in the months preceding the genocide.
Incitement to genocide is not only a hallmark of genocide, but also possibly an indispensable prerequisite for genocide to occur. The potential danger of words has been recognised in international criminal law, as is evidenced by the criminalisation of ‘incitement to genocide’ in the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 (the Genocide Convention).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Responsibility to ProtectFrom Principle to Practice, pp. 319 - 336Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2011