Human Rights and Genocide
Analyze the development of human rights norms, international law, genocide prevention, and debates over intervention.
A lesson of World History, in Contemporary Global Issues, about 10 minutes.
Human Rights and Genocide in the Modern World
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain the origins and development of the international human rights framework, describe major genocides of the 20th–21st centuries, analyze why genocides occur, and evaluate the international community's response.
The Origins of the Human Rights Framework
Pre-WWII: human rights were largely considered internal matters for each state. International law dealt with states, not individuals.
WWII and the Holocaust made this position untenable. If states could murder millions of their own citizens, the international community needed a response.
Nuremberg Trials (1945–1946):
- Nazi leaders tried by international tribunal
- Established: individuals can be held criminally liable for "crimes against humanity" and war crimes
- Created precedent for international criminal law
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948):
- Adopted by UN General Assembly (December 10, 1948)
- 30 articles articulating rights every human possesses
- Civil and political rights: life, liberty, freedom from torture, fair trial
- Social and economic rights: education, work, adequate standard of living
- Not legally binding — but normatively foundational
UN Genocide Convention (1948):
- Definition of genocide: acts committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group"
- Obligates signatories to prevent and punish genocide
- Enforcement has been the challenge
Understanding Genocide
Conditions that enable genocide (Gregory Stanton's Stages of Genocide):
- Classification (us vs. them)
- Symbolization (labels, markers)
- Discrimination (legal exclusion)
- Dehumanization (propaganda portraying group as subhuman)
- Organization (militias, planning)
- Polarization (extremists attack moderates)
- Preparation (lists, weapons, deportations)
- Persecution (arrests, killings)
- Extermination (mass killing)
- Denial (perpetrators deny the genocide)
Not random: genocide requires state power, ideology, and often international indifference.
The Armenian Genocide (1915–1916)
Context: Ottoman Empire, WWI.
What happened: Ottoman government (Young Turk leadership) ordered the deportation of the Armenian Christian population from eastern Anatolia. Deportation convoys were massacred; those who survived the marches died in the Syrian desert. Estimated 600,000–1.5 million Armenians killed.