The crime of cultural genocide refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction or erasure of the cultural heritage, traditions, practices, and institutions of a group. It involves actions or policies aimed at undermining, suppressing, or eradicating the unique elements that define a culture, such as its language, customs, beliefs and way of life. In China, the Uyghurs minority in Xingang have been subjected to oppression due to their differences from the majority Han Chinese. Many academics have classified thistreatment of the Uyghurs as cultural genocide. The term "cultural genocide" has been discussed for years about its historical implication. In the current international legal framework, the concept of cultural genocide lacks any binding legal authority as genocide is primarily associated with physical and biological destruction. Consequently, this has led to inconsistency regarding the role of international law in addressing cultural genocide. Thus, this thesis will assess and examine the legal position of cultural genocide within international law. The examination of the legal components will be conducted through anormative legal analysis. The second objective will investigate the power structures thatshaped the recognition and prevention of cultural genocide within the international legal framework Alongside, a poststructuralism theory will be implemented to identify thesignificant emphasis on the authority of entities to decide what we count as valid knowledge and that this power is achieved through the manipulation of discourse.

The indigenous peoples of Canada have been severely mistreated since the period of European colonization and the founding of the country up to the end of the last century, resulting in serious human rights disparity. Aboriginal leaders, some politicians and members of the public are calling past actions, genocide. Principally a philosophical thesis, this paper deals with the question of the Government of Canada recognizing that their historical treatment of the indigenous peoples of Canada was genocide and whether, in light of the facts that have come to view in the past twenty years, it is the just response from the government; which I contend would result in aiding the nation to heal and move forward. The component parts for understanding this issue – the Aboriginals, history of the Indian Residential School System, genocide and culture, and transitional justice - are viewed through a conceptual analysis of these contexts, with post-colonial discourse narrative. In this way, one can judge based on merit the validity of the argument. I conclude with a philosophical analysis in normative ethics, that transitional justice and equitable rights fulfillment cannot move forward for all Canadians, if the label of genocide is not acknowledged as applicable to the era of the Indian Residential Schools.

Rather than being located in a field of art that addresses genocide through assumptions connected with identity issues or activism, this thesis of an artist’s exploration of artistic response to genocide in post World War II art practice, is informed by the emerging field of genocide scholarship. Seeing a parallelism between the concerns of genocide scholars and artists who respond to genocide, this thesis is an interdisciplinary study of art positioned alongside the field of genocide scholarship, as theorised by scholars such as Donald Bloxham and A. Dirk Moses. In addressing genocide through broader historical trends, periods and structures, it assumes that artists who respond to genocide share with genocide scholars a concern about genocide at a secondary level and share the potential to create illumination in the field. This thesis explores art practices that address genocide conceptually through structure and material. The central claim of this thesis is that recent and contemporary art practices, here discussed, show a concern to respond to genocide as an ethical response, and that they do so by engaging with the complexity of abstract issues such as complicity and agency. The initial analysis of Adorno’s discourse on ethics, as it relates to response in art, sets up a level of complexity for two further investigations that interrogate the discourses of victim representation and lens-based documents of genocide through ethics and agency. Together these provide an analytical framework for the project. Close readings informed by genocide scholarship, of art practices including those of Jimmie Durham and Francis Alÿs, take forward notions in the existing critical field. These readings yield not only the evidence that demonstrates a commitment to creating ethically based art through conceptually informed practice, in artists responding to genocide, but also the value of a cultural critique that is informed by genocide scholarship.

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This study is centred on the phenomenon of the child headed household in Rwanda. Such households have become an increasingly common occurrence in Sub-Saharan Africa, as a result, in particular, of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This has caused millions of children to become orphaned, and has brought about new coping mechanisms. The case of Rwanda, however, differs from the majority of countries which have experienced the emergence of these households. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that its child headed households are a legacy of two major factors, that of genocide as well as HIV/AIDS. The genocide of 1994 resulted in the death of an estimated 800,000 people, and prompted mass displacement and estrangement of the majority of the population. There has been considerable interest in Rwanda‟s progress following the genocide on the part of academics, NGOs and development practitioners. Whilst some of this has focused on children and the vulnerable, the long term perspective has not been sufficiently considered. This research set out to address this by undertaking a longitudinal study over four years examining the child headed household in Rwanda. A core group of 42 households formed the sample, taken from urban, peri-urban, and rural areas and from a refugee camp. In the first place the study explores the definition of “child headed household” and offers a typology of the phenomenon. Second, it offers an analysis based on field work of the livelihood challenges to the children within these households, including the basic survival needs of land and property inheritance, income generation and education. Finally the psychosocial needs of the child headed households for acceptance and participation within communities were considered. This work considers the challenges to livelihood survival and the non-material needs of those in child headed households in Rwanda within the realities of daily life. It concludes that child headed households need to be redefined in terms of age, composition, and their particular narratives, and their variable composition is an integral characteristic. The livelihood needs of CHHs are particularly challenged by the lack of opportunities for income generation, access to land rights and changes in household life, including revisions in programmes and policies. Furthermore the non-material needs of the children in these households are often unacknowledged; their stories frequently portray a lack of family and community support, marginalisation and isolation, which contests widely held and historic understandings of family and community.

This dissertation explores a family of theoretical models of humanitarian military intervention. A number of recent theorists, including Tesón, Caney, Buchanan, Orend, Moellendorf, and Wheeler, build their models from a perspective called ‘cosmopolitanism.’ They offer arguments based on the moral supremacy of human rights, the arbitrary character of territorial boundaries, and the duty to protect individual human beings exposed to serious and systematic violence by their own governments. I develop a model of intervention that recognizes the moral significance of political self-government. To the extent that international society should countenance a ‘duty to protect’ human rights, the duty ought to be constrained by a commitment to the values of self-government. The model developed in this dissertation also recognizes the significance of international law enforcement. Insofar as we should permit a role of enforcement for international human rights, that role should be constrained by formally accepted global principles and in particular by positive obligations to prevent and punish actions regarded as international crimes. These other global values are viewed with suspicion by cosmopolitan theorists, who tend to construe them in stark contrast to the vision of global responsibility for human rights protection. But I will show how these other values emerged simultaneously with cosmopolitanism and share many of its underlying intuitions. Because self-government and law enforcement are linked politically to the cosmopolitan vision, these two distinctive global values can be utilized as tools to fortify or expand cosmopolitanism by enlarging the global sense of responsibility for human rights. The aim of this project is to explain how these other values came to be neglected by cosmopolitan theorists, and why they should not be forgotten. / Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-25 12:11:55.056

This  thesis  offers  a  comparative  study  of  the  My  Lai  massacre  perpetrated  by  American soldiers during the Vietnam in War and the  massacre in Bialystok  carried out by a police unit operating  under the Nazi regime. Using theories from social  psychology in combination witha  careful  scrutiny  of  sources  from  criminal  investigations,  it  seeks  to  elucidate  the  social mechanisms  of  perpetration  in  the  two  cases  and  explores  how  their  divergent  macro-level contexts facilitated  distinctions in the perpetrator’s behavioural patterns and motivations. The study  demonstrates  that  despite  commonalities  at  the  micro  level,  the  massacres  were organized  in  distinctive  ways,  featured  divergent  perpetrator  behavioural  patterns  andencompassed  disparities  in  the  number  of  abstainers  due  to  different  macro-level  contexts. The  thesis provides  explanations  for these case variations, and it  argues  that new insight into the phenomenon of perpetration can be gained by adopting a comparative perspective.

The international community adopted DDR programs at the end of the Cold War in 1989 as a means to end violent conflicts in various parts of world. The traditional DDR programs were designed either to disband the defeated enemy forces, or to integrate excombatants where the fighting has not been conclusive. Exclusion of ex-combatants has resulted in renewed conflict. This thesis argues that conventional DDR has neglected two important aspects that are crucial for sustainable stability and societal reconciliation: military integration and a sensitization program. In contrast, an approach that integrates former enemy forces and equally reintegrates ex-combatants and government forces into civilian society not only ends violent conflict, but also bridges the social gap among ethnic groups and, consequently, enhances societal reconciliation. The Rwandan DDRI program considers integration/reintegration of ex-combatants that precedes the sensitization phase that takes 3-4 months; this has led to stability and reconciliation after the 1994 genocide. Ingando is a reconciliation tool that transforms negative perceptions that cause ethnic hatred; mitigates conflict influence factors; and manages defeat, shame, and remorse on the part of the loser. Therefore DDRI programs that integrate a sensitization program and exit strategy lead to sustainable stability and reconciliation.

1 Abstract Genocide belongs to the category of crimes under international law. Crime under international law means the act of a natural person acting in an official capacity or with the consent of the State and whose conduct violates important norms of mandatory law. A perpetrator committing the offence has the individual criminal responsibility which follows directly from international law. The term genocide was first used by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944. Lemkin's idea of genocide as a crime against international law was widely accepted by the international community and was used as one of the bases of the Nuremberg process. Genocide has not been since the beginning of the traditional division of crimes under international law listed as a separate crime. The criminal act was regarded as a part of other crimes under international law, especially crimes against humanity. Genocide acquired autonomous status as a separate crime under international law only after the 2nd World War in 1948, when the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted. The Genocide Convention of 1948 and the corresponding rule of customary international law require both the objective and subjective elements to meet so as to incur individual criminal responsibility for the crime of...

Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler / United States foreign policy must balance national interests with international obligations, including a commitment to human rights. Genocide represents an enormous violation of human rights but also a significant challenge to the formulation of United States foreign policies. The word genocide was created to encompass the multi-layered characteristics of the systematic and intentional nature of mass human destruction. Though the US has vowed to prevent and stop genocide from occurring, its actions do not indicate so. In Turkey the US failed to defend Armenians, using political principles to justify the decision. Association between the Holocaust and genocide has limited US recognition and action in other situations. Various methods were employed in response to genocide in Rwanda in order to avoid an obligation to action. Emphasizing the people and the society which they compose, the United States must not focus on a strict definition of genocide but must broaden its comprehension beyond technicalities in order to responsibly recognize and respond to genocide, and in doing so capture the intended comprehension of the word. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: Sociology. / Discipline: College Honors Program.