International Criminal Law

In keeping with Christmas spirit, here’s my next post on the Genocide Convention. Can a state be responsible for genocide? What does that even mean? Aren’t international crimes, in the sage words of the Nuremberg Tribunal, committed by men, not by abstract entities?Can a state even possess genocidal intent, a basic requirement for the crime of genocide? A full answer to this question requires revisiting many old debates, particularly those during the drafting of the Genocide Convention and on then Draft Article 19 on state crimes of the International Law Commission’s project on state responsibility, that was removed from the final ILC Articles. If there is one thing is made clear from an examination of the Convention’s travaux, as well as state practice, that is that states have excluded any form of state criminal responsibility for the crime of genocide or any other international crime. That does not mean, however, that no state responsibility exists. In my EJIL article on state responsibility for genocide, I’ve argued that the attribution model developed…