Letter of the Law (Voices on Genocide Prevention)
Series: Voices on Genocide Prevention
From: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Length: 00:26:00
Legal scholar William Schabas, director of the Irish Human Rights Centre and author of "Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes", discusses the history of genocide in international law and its relationship to the overlapping concept of crime against humanity.
"You've got a definition of genocide that really hasn't evolved very much since 1948 and you've got a definition of crimes against humanity that's evolved greatly."
"Jimmy Carter recently made a statement saying, 'Darfur is not genocide. It's crimes against humanity. It's ethnic cleansing,' and he was trashed on the Internet by people saying that was trivializing the events. I don't really agree with that. [...] But there is that sense that people still have, you can't explain it legally. It's not about law. It's about emotional use of words and that's all I can say on it."
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Related Pieces
Piece Description
Legal scholar William Schabas, director of the Irish Human Rights Centre and author of "Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes", discusses the history of genocide in international law and its relationship to the overlapping concept of crime against humanity. "You've got a definition of genocide that really hasn't evolved very much since 1948 and you've got a definition of crimes against humanity that's evolved greatly." "Jimmy Carter recently made a statement saying, 'Darfur is not genocide. It's crimes against humanity. It's ethnic cleansing,' and he was trashed on the Internet by people saying that was trivializing the events. I don't really agree with that. [...] But there is that sense that people still have, you can't explain it legally. It's not about law. It's about emotional use of words and that's all I can say on it."
Broadcast History
Posted to US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Web site on October 18, 2007 and is available on various Web-based distribution sites, namely iTunes.
Transcript
OCTOBER 18, 2007, LETTER OF THE LAW
JERRY FOWLER: My guest today is Professor William Schabas. He's Director of the Irish Center for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland in Galway. He's a leading authority on international human rights law, and among his many books is Genocide and International Law: The Crime of Crimes. Bill, welcome to the program.
WILLIAM SCHABAS: Thank you, I'm glad to be here.
JERRY FOWLER: I wanted to start, Bill, with the very basics. The term genocide is used a lot. It's one that's very popularly known and probably subject to a lot of different ideas of what it means, but the term at least in international law is very specifically defined by a United Nations Convention. What is that definition?
WILLIAM SCHABAS: The United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide dates to 1948. It was adopted by the Gen...
Read the full transcript
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- Schabas (schabas.jpg)
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