About IGS

What is genocide?

Genocide is a term that has been coined by combining the word genos which means race or tribe in Ancient Greek and the word cide which is derived from Latin and means killing, and is generally translated into Japanese as “shudan satsugai-zai (crime of group murder)”. It is a serious crime under international law, for which the individual who committed the crime bears criminal liability whether he or she is a public figure or a private person. The first person who used the concept of genocide was the Jewish legal scholar Raphael Lemkin from Poland who introduced it in his work “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of Government - Proposals for Redress” (1944) which indicted Nazi Germany’s rule of violence. In the “Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide” (Genocide Convention) which was subsequently adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 the concept was given a legal definition and this definition was also used in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which came into force in 2002.

Under international law genocide is defined as an act "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such” and the definition mentions specifically the following actions: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group as well as forcibly transferring children of the group to another group (for more details please refer to the research guide on this website).

This definition under international law (= “narrow definition of genocide”) has been widely accepted and has been made the legal basis for international tribunals and referred to as the standard when countries establish the crime of genocide in their domestic penal codes. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that among the phenomena that can be regarded as genocide there are cases which do not fall within the scope of this definition. There are cases where groups are targeted that are not one of the four groups defined by international law, for example the persecution and murder of social groups such as the “urban residents” (new people) in Cambodia and the kulaks (wealthy farmers) under the Stalinist regime, political groups such as the “enemies of the people” under same Stalinist regime and the “cultural roaders” during the Cultural Revolution in China or groups that were called “asocial elements” under the Nazi regime. In addition to this, it is not necessarily the case that only given groups become the targets of genocide, and one has to take note that the perpetrators of genocide often define their victims in an arbitrary manner and fabricate new categories for the groups they target.

In addition there are also acts that involve genocide which although they go beyond the definition under international law are closely related to genocide, such as ethnic cleansing (involuntary resettlement), the deportation of children, the ban of using a national language or “cultural genocide” through the destruction of historical and religious monuments and cultural property.

The research on genocide in IGS includes these phenomena that can also be called “broadly defined genocide”.

Research issues and system

The modern world has experienced many genocides, such as the massacres of indigenous people by the imperialist powers, the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the genocide of the Sinti and Roma and the Holocaust of the Jews in Europe during the Second World War, the political violence in socialist systems such as the former Soviet Union, Mongolia, China and Cambodia and the ethnic massacres in post-colonial Africa.

IGS aims to investigate the causes, why in the modern era, which has also been called the era of "civilization and democracy", and especially in the 20th century in many regions of the world genocides and phenomena that are similar to genocide have occurred. Especially we examine how the occurrence of genocide relates to the new logics of inclusion, selection and exclusion originating in "modernity", such as the nation state, racism and eugenics and pursue the following four perspectives: the clarification of the background factors of genocide, the investigation of the actual conditions, the inquiry into the strategies to reconstruct post-genocide societies and the construction of prevention systems.

(1) The background factors of genocide

We conduct a comparative analysis of the relevant political, economic and social background factors at the macro level by focusing on the following points: the formation of the nation state and national self-determination the modern sciences and “bio-politics”, totalitarian systems and the roles of law, colonial rule and the institutional legacy of colonialism, the transformation of war in the modern era and the functions of the international system.

(2) Investigation of the actual conditions of genocide

Here we clarify the actual conditions of genocide at the micro- level, such as the ideologies that cause genocides and the discourses and representations that call for the extermination of enemy groups, the identity politics mobilized by those in power, the motives and mechanisms involved in the implementation of genocide, the networks of beneficiaries and the interchangeability and multi-layerdness of perpetrator-victim relationships and show the universal and individual characteristics of genocidal phenomena which are frequently occurring in the modern world.

(3) The reconstruction of post-genocide societies

Taking into account the precedents in Europe and North America, we examine how to achieve peace in countries and regions that have experienced a genocide, such as Cambodia, Rwanda or former Yugoslavia and how to rebuild their societies in a fair and just manner, and we also analyze the role of the reconciliation between people and ethnicities after a genocide, the fostering of civil society, anti-genocide education, assistance and mental care for victims, development and reconstruction assistance, as well as the role of NGOs.

(4) Construction of prevention systems

In order to grasp the possible danger of a genocide precisely and make it possible to stop its expansion and resolve it, we examine the system the United Nations has formed to prevent genocide, transitional justice through the International Criminal Court (ICC), ad-hoc international tribunals and hybrid tribunals, etc., the correlation between conflicts, genocides and the occurrence of refugees, the actions of states involved and the response of international society, etc. and propose a comprehensive system for the prevention of genocide that includes early warning mechanisms, recurrence prevention and  middle and long term prevention. In addition, as a an important foundation for this endeavor, we are going to examine the research on individual cases in a comprehensive manner and work on the formation of a theoretical framework that can be adapted to the various cases of genocide.

To work on these issues we have brought together researchers from various fields, including historical science (Western history, Far Eastern history, and Japanese history), area studies, cultural anthropology, sociology, international politics and human security studies to conduct interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.

* IGS conducts its research based on the support from the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) “Historical research on genocidal phenomena in the modern world” (2009 to 2012).

Contact

Research office Prof. Yuji Ishida
Department of Area Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo
3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902
E-Mail: igs (a) cgs.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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