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Groups Defined by Gender and the Genocide Convention
Get PDFThis article explores the crime of genocide in connectivity to groups defined by gender. Its aim is to investigate whether including groups defined by gender as a protected group in the Genocide Convention appears legally plausible. It begins by probing the historical origins of the concept of genocide. This exposition emanates into an analytical examination of the rationale of protecting human groups in international criminal law. Against this background, the article advocates an understanding of the crime of genocide as a rights-implementing institute. Subsequently, it employs an ejusdem generis analysis to assess whether groups defined by gender are coherent with the current canon of the protected groups, and if similar treatment thereby can be warranted. It then turns to examine other international law instruments, to expose that none of these are suitable proxies in dealing with gender-specific genocides. From this perspective, the article suggests that the content of the crime of genocide is not determinate, but rather emerges as a battlefield for hegemonic interests. Hence, it is easily discernible that the way in which the current construction of the protected groups in the Genocide Convention relates to gender groups reflects a deliberate choice. The article concludes with asserting that the choice represents a lacuna in international criminal law that in the end compromises the legitimacy of the crime of genocide, since the personal scope of the crime of genocide risks being in discord with current social and political trajectories
Using the Concept of Genocide as a Tool for Resistance : Legal Pluralities in Civic Action Against Son Preference in Tirupati, India
No full textIn this paper based on original fieldwork, I seek to contribute to our understanding of the concept of genocide by examining how civil society actors draw from some aspects of it when seeking to bring about social change in relation to son preference primarily in Tirupati, India. Drawing from Nordic “critical” legal scholarship, I argue that the turn to the international criminal law concept of genocide could be theorized as a case of legal pluralism. Based on empirical material, I posit that even so to say formally “wrong” uses of legal concepts appear to be politically powerful. I suggest that the use of the international legal order in Tirupati’s civil society could be seen as an emancipatory strategy that follows an “instrumental” interpretation of international law. I conclude by arguing that the empirical material implies that we may need to rethink some of the underlying assumptions of the concept of genocide by highlighting its potential of serving as a tool for resistance for actors in civil society
The International Criminal Trial as a Site for Contesting Historical and Political Narratives: The Case of Dominic Ongwen
No full textThis paper considers how the international criminal trial emerges as a site for contesting historical and political narratives, and how the proceedings against Dominic Ongwen in the International Criminal Court gives us yet another opportunity to do so. It focuses on how the criminal trial appears to reinforce the hegemony of some contested historical narratives over others in attempting to deal with the past. It is suggested that the conflict in Uganda as well as what is currently happening in the Ongwen trial cannot be understood in isolation from, on the one hand, interregional and factional struggles within the Ugandan territory and, on the other hand, a postcolonial logic. Departing from this nexus, the paper introduces, discusses, and analyzes the strategy of rupture as developed by Jacques Vergès. By scrutinizing the legal strategies employed by Ongwen and his defense team, the paper argues that their strategies demonstrate the ways in which historical and political narratives are susceptible to ‘rupture’ by counternarratives put forth by defendants who refuse to play their part in the global justice drama by pointing to the struggle for larger contextual issues. In the setting of the Ongwen trial, this paper argues that by tapping into the victim-perpetrator narrative, Ongwen’s defense team are, wittingly or unwittingly, ‘rupturing’ the binaries in international criminal law. The paper concludes by arguing that the Court may need to find a new approach to ‘courtroom historiography’ if it is going to survive, either with or without the Global South
Just Another Battleground: Resisting Courtroom Historiography in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
No full textJust Another Battleground: Resisting Courtroom Historiography in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
No full textJust another battleground: resisting courtroom historiography in the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia
No full textThis paper examines how Case 002/01 in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia emerges as a space within which the roles of history and international justice are contested. It focuses on how the criminal trial appear to fortify the hegemony of some contested historical narrative over others in dealing with the past. The paper introduces, discusses, and analyzes the ‘strategy of rupture’ as coined by Jacques Vergès, and the ways in which this legal defense has been applied in practice not only to resist the Tribunal in itself, but also historical knowledge-making in the Cambodian transitional justice process
(Re)sketching the theorizing around “missing women”: imageries of the future, resistance, and materializing aspects of gender
No full textRecent sex ratio data indicate that the number of “missing” women and girls has reached approximately 200 million. This is a significant increase since 1990, when roughly 100 million women and girls had “disappeared.” What are the contemporary discussions concerning the widespread practice of the elimination of fetuses and bodies with female genitals? Moreover, how should we, as scholars of law and global politics, name and theorize these “missing” bodies? Despite decades of rigorous scholarship on the connections between sex, gender, and “missing” bodies, there appears to be no agreed understanding of the current and ongoing elimination of fetuses and bodies with female genitals. In this article, we go beyond some well-argued and thought-provoking elaboration and critique of the concept of gendercide to further inquire: what claims should be secured to establish a solid theoretical base for further research on the elimination of fetuses and bodies with female genitals? By building on – in empirical terms – the case of India, our suggested answer to this question rests on two main arguments. First, to capture the motivations and practices of the elimination of fetuses and bodies with female genitals, the productive and materializing aspects of gender should be further interrogated. Second, we argue that previous research has failed to include a temporal dimension to the debate around the “missing” women. We should embrace the imagined emotional encounters with the future, mainly on the part of parents or other family members who perform the sex-selective practices. By integrating these two arguments, we conclude that rethinking the elimination of fetuses and bodies with female genitals also means rethinking the resistance to its practices
“Gendercide” as a Means for Resistance: An Exploration of Concepts, Violence and Discourses of Dissent
No full textIntegrating “storytelling” as a method in judicial processes?
Get PDFThis paper examines how Colombia’s Justicia Especial para la Paz (JEP) emerges as a tribunal within which the roles of history, politics, and transitional justice becomes contested. The paper starts by placing the JEP in a historical, social, and political context. Building on the contextualization, it focuses on how the JEP appears to be an extension of the five-decade long conflict in Colombia in its attempt to deal with the past. The paper underscores how punishing “bad” things is not an easy task. Against this background, the paper challenges the boundaries of criminal liability by discussing and analyzing “storytelling” as an alternative to truth-telling in the JEP in order to not only provide additional nuances to the conflict, but also as a way to, at least theoretically, tie different social collectives together in a post-conflict society and enable the courtroom to function constructively with difficult social issues in the aftermath of cataclysm
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