LAW 804 - The Law of Genocide Seminar

3 credit(s)

This seminar examines the historical, philosophical and political origins of statutes that outlaw crimes against humanity and genocide. It then focuses on aspects of the first post-World War II trial of the SS personnel at the Nazi concentration camps of Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, followed by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg; the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem; the trial in Tel Aviv of the head of the Jewish police of a Polish ghetto; the trial of former Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and related proceedings; as well as certain prosecutions before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in particular those relating to incitement to genocide on the part of newspapers and radio broadcasters. It will be compare and contrast aspects of these trials. Also discussed is the impact of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and consideration of the development of the law relating to genocide and crimes against humanity over the course of the past 70 years and its contemporary implications. The goal of the seminar is to provide the students with a broad awareness of the jurisprudential, historical, political, and social dimensions that underlie the ongoing efforts to criminalize and prosecute ethnically, religiously or racially motivated mass murder and related atrocities.