March 29, 2024

Beyond the “g-word”

Following some comments I made in a previous post, David Scheffer, law professor and director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law, and the U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues (1997-2001), writes about the utility of advocates using the “atrocity crimes” terminology in Darfur.

Atrocity Crimes in Darfur

By David Scheffer

The Darfur advocacy community has a very difficult challenge in communicating both to policy-makers and to the general public the seriousness of the criminal conduct on the ground in Darfur without raising objections as to whether genocide exists or war crimes or crimes against humanity in fact have been committed.  Unfortunately, years have transpired with the search for genocide in Darfur being used to delay effective action or, once determined as the U.S. State Department did in September 2004, seemingly to lull Washington into self-congratulatory complacency.

There may be some utility, then, in applying a term that covers the individual categories of crimes-genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity-without bogging down the discussion in definitional disputes better suited for judges and legal scholars to sort out over time.  Since 2001 I have sought to inject into general and professional discourse the term “atrocity crimes” as a means of avoiding the debilitating consequences of trying to frame policy responses and media reporting around lengthy and often grossly inadequate terminology about genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.  We often see the term, “violations of international humanitarian law,” which practically no one in the general public truly understands and which is an inaccurate description of many examples of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the law of war.

We know that what has transpired in Darfur are atrocity crimes, and that is all that should be required to press for effective policy responses to stop the killing, wounding, raping, pillage, ethnic cleansing, and destruction that continues to describe the horrors of  Darfur.  The International Criminal Court already is examining and rendering decisions on the individual categories of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur, a role suited for a judicial body.  But the Darfur advocacy community does not need to get hung up in the definitional and terminological jungle that can take years to sort out in criminal tribunals and a body like the International Court of Justice.  Advocates for action on Darfur (and by that I mean the wide range of actions and policies being debated and promoted by interested groups) should coalesce around the term “atrocity crimes,” use it to describe generally what has happened and is happening in Darfur, and then move on to what is truly important for advocacy purposes: effective responsive action.  Otherwise, there is a good chance that any specific use of one of the categories of crimes embraced by “atrocity crimes” to describe events in Darfur will risk being inaccurate and certainly will be challenged, often by those determined to thwart meaningful international action on Darfur.  Khartoum has manipulated the terminological gridlock to its advantage.

No major politician or diplomat should be allowed to hide behind a dispute over terminology when so many hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake.  Call it “atrocity crimes” and move on to what really matters: doing something about them.

(You can read more about “atrocity crimes” and “atrocity law” in my articles: “Genocide and Atrocity Crimes,” 1 Genocide Studies and Prevention 3, 229-250 (December 2006), and “A Symposium on David Scheffer’s ‘Genocide and Atrocity Crimes,’ 2 Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, 31-96 (April 2007).)

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