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Abstract
In 2007, the International Court of Justice declared that states have a duty to prevent genocide from occurring in another state since the prevention and punishment of genocide is a concern of every state and of the international community as a whole. The doctrine of the responsibility to protect will be analysed in the light of the erga omnes and erga omnes partes character of the rules embodied in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is argued that, even though there are differences between the court's decisions about genocide and the applicable regime regarding the consequences of serious violations of erga omnes obligations, they are both consonant with the doctrine of the responsibility to protect since they are both inspired by the need to guarantee the protection of fundamental legal values.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Marco Longobardo is a PhD candidate, curriculum of International Law and EU Law, School of Law, University of Rome ‘Sapienza’. He is also a teaching assistant at the School of Law of the University of Messina. From January to June 2015 he was Visiting PhD Fellow at Middlesex University of London.
Notes
1 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Judgment, 26 February 2007 (Bosnian Genocide case).
2 See Human Rights Council, Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Human Rights Situation in Iraq in the Light of Abuses Committed by the So-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and Associated Groups (A/HRC/28/18, 13 March 2015).
3 On the Genocide Convention, see John Quigley, The Genocide Convention, An International Law Analysis (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006); Paola Gaeta, ed., The UN Genocide Convention: A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); William A. Schabas, Genocide in International Law, The Crime of Crimes, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Christian Tams, Lars Berster, and Björn Schiffbauer, eds, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. A Commentary (Munchen/Oxford/Baden Baden: Beck/Hart/Nomos, 2014).
4 Orna Ben-Naftali, ‘The Obligation to Prevent and Punish Genocide’, in The UN Genocide Convention, 27–57, 35.
5 Reservations to the Genocide Convention, Advisory Opinion, 28 May 1951, para. 23.
6 Application on the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Order, 8 April 1993; Application on the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Order, 13 September 1993.
7 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Judgment, 11 July 1996 (Preliminary Objections).
8 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia), Judgment, 3 February 2015 (Croatian Genocide case).
9 See, ex plurimis, Olivier Corten, ‘L'arrêt rendu par la CIJ dans l'affaire du crime de génocide (Bosnie-Herzégovine c. Serbie): vers un assouplissements des conditions permettant d'engager la responsabilité´ d'une État pour génocide, Annuaire français de droit international 53 (2007): 249–90; Andrea Gattini, ‘Breach of the Obligation to Prevent and Reparation Thereof in the ICJ's Genocide Judgment’, European Journal of International Law 18 (2007): 695–713; Bruno Simma, ‘Genocide and International Court of Justice’, in The Genocide Convention Sixty Years after its Adoption, ed. Christoph Safferling and Eckart Conze (The Hague: T.M.C. Asser Press, 2010), 259–72.
10 See, generally, Mirko Sossai, La prevenzione del terrorismo nel diritto internazionale (Torino: Giappichelli, 2012); Emmanuel Decaux and Sébastien Touze, ed., La prévention des violations des droits de l'Homme (Paris: Pedone 2015).
11 Bosnian Genocide case, para. 425.
12 Ben-Naftali, ‘The Obligation to Prevent and Punish Genocide’, 28.
13 Ibid., 30. On the temporal scope of the duty to prevent genocide and its relationship with the duty to punish it, see Etienne Ruvebana and Marcel Brus, ‘Before It's Too Late: Preventing Genocide by Holding the Territorial State Responsible for Not Taking Preventive Action’, Netherlands International Law Review 62 (2015): 25–47, 28–33.
14 Bosnian Genocide case, para. 430.
15 Sheri P. Rosenberg, ‘Responsibility to Protect: A Framework for Prevention’, Global Responsibility to Protect 1 (2009): 444–477, 467.
16 ‘[A] significant new development’ according to Simma, ‘Genocide and International Court of Justice’, 262.
17 On the territorial scope of the Genocide Convention, see Marko Milanovic, ‘Territorial Application of the Convention and State Succession’, in The UN Genocide Convention, 473–493.
18 For an overview, see Pasquale De Sena, La nozione di giurisdizione statale nei trattati sui diritti dell'uomo (Torino: Giappichelli, 2002); Marko Milanovic, Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Treaties: Law, Principles, and Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Karen da Costa, The Extraterritorial Application of Selected Human Rights Treaties (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
19 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004, para. 112; Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russia), Order, 15 October 2008, para. 109.
20 Bosnian Genocide case, para. 430.
21 Gattini, ‘Breach of the Obligation to Prevent’, 699–700.
22 Serena Forlati, ‘The Legal Obligation to Prevent Genocide: Bosnia v Serbia and Beyond’, Polish Yearbook of International Law 31 (2011): 189–205, 201.
23 Bosnian Genocide case, para. 430.
24 Anne Peters, ‘The Security Council's Responsibility to Protect’, International Organizations Law Review 8 (2011): 1–40, 11.
25 Gattini, ‘Breach of the Obligation to Prevent’, 701.
26 Simma, ‘Genocide and International Court of Justice’, 262.
27 Reservations to the Genocide Convention, 23: ‘In such a convention the contracting States do not have any interests of their own; they merely have, one and all, a common interest, namely, the accomplishment of those high purposes which are the raison d’être of the convention’.
28 Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Limited, Judgment, 5 February 1970, para. 34. For some remarks on the relationship between this decision and the 1951 advisory opinion, see Maurizio Ragazzi, The Concept of International Obligations Erga Omnes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 92–4.
29 Preliminary Objections, para. 31.
30 Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New Application: 2002) (DRC v. Uganda), Judgment, 26 February 2006 (Armed Activities case), para. 64.
31 Bosnian Genocide case, paras 147 and 185.
32 Questions Relating to the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite (Belgium v. Senegal), Judgment, 20 July 2012 (Belgium v. Senegal case), para. 68.
33 Croatian Genocide case, para. 87.
34 Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Limited, para. 33.
35 Roberto Ago, ‘Obligation Erga Omnes and the International Community’, in International Crimes of State: A Critical Analysis of the ILC's Draft Article 19 on State Responsibility, ed. Joseph H.H. Weiler, Antonio Cassese, and Marina Spinedi (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988), 237–9.
36 According to the Institut de Droit international ‘an obligation erga omnes is: (a) an obligation under general international law that a State owes in any given case to the international community, in view of its common values and its concern for compliance, so that a breach of that obligation enables all States to take action’ (Institut de Droit international, Krakow Session, Resolution of 27 August 2005, Article 1(a), http://www.idi-iil.org/idiE/resolutionsE/2005_kra_01_en.pdf (accessed 17 June 2015)). See also Paolo Picone, ‘The Distinction between Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes', in The Law of Treaties beyond the Vienna Convention, ed. Enzo Cannizzaro (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 411–24, 414–16.
37 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Vienna, 23 May 1969, Article 53.
38 On the distinction between peremptory norms and obligations erga omnes, see Linos-Alexander Sicilianos, ‘The Classification of Obligations and the Multilateral Dimension of the Relations of International Responsibility’, European Journal of International Law 13 (2002): 1127–45, 1136–7; Picone, ‘The Distinction between Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes’, 411–24.
39 On the International Law Commission's shift from peremptory norms to obligation erga omnes, see Paolo Picone, ‘Obblighi erga omnes e codificazione della responsabilità degli Stati’, Rivista di diritto internazionale 88 (2005): 893–954.
40 Sicilianos, ‘The Classification of Obligations’, 1134–6; Paolo Picone, ‘Le reazioni collettive ad un illecito erga omnes in assenza di uno stato individualmente leso’, Rivista di diritto internazionale 96 (2013), 5–47, 21.
41 DARSIWA, Article 48(1)(a). See also the definition of the Institut de Droit international, Krakow Session, Resolution of 27 August 2005, Article 1(b).
42 Ben-Naftali, ‘The Obligation to Prevent and Punish Genocide’, 43–4; Giorgio Gaja, ‘The Role of the United Nations in Preventing and Suppressing Genocide’, in The UN Genocide Convention, 397–406, 405.
43 Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Judgment, 26 November 1984, para. 73.
44 See, for an overview of the different opinion, Sarah Mazzocchi, ‘Humanitarian Intervention in a Post-Iraq, Post-Darfur World: Is There now a Duty to Prevent Genocide Even Without Security Council Approval?’, Annual Survey of International and Comparative Law 17 (2011): 111–28; Luke Glanville, ‘The Responsibility to Protect Beyond Borders’, Human Rights Law Review 12 (2012): 1–32, 15–28; Very significantly, Bruno Simma, who served as a judge during the trial, patently affirmed about his contribution to the decision: ‘I would call it my court's specific contribution to the development (and continued vitality) of the “responsibility to protect”’ (Simma, ‘Genocide and International Court of Justice’, 264).
45 For the early theorisation of this doctrine, see International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, ‘The Responsibility to Protect', December 2001, responsibilitytoprotect.org/ICISS%20Report.pdf (accessed 17 June 2015). Some references can be found in the Security Council resolutions 1873 (S/RES/183, 17 March 2011), 1975 (S/RES/1075, 30 March 2011), 2085 (S/RES/2085, 20 December 2012). See, among others, Carlo Focarelli, ‘Ahead to the Past? Responsibility to Protect and the Global System’, Groningen Journal of International Law 1 (2012): 1–10; Responsibility to Protect: From Principle to Practice, ed. Julia Hoffmann and André Nollkaemper (Amsterdam: Pallas, 2012); Peter Hilpold, ed., Responsibility to Protect (R2P): A New Paradigm of International Law? (Leiden/Boston: Brill/Nijhoff, 2015).
46 General Assembly, 2005 World Summit Outcome Document (A/RES/60/1, 24 October 2005), para. 139 (emphasis added).
47 On the possibility to intervene in Syria without authorisation from the Security Council, see Saira Mohamed, ‘The U.N. Security Council and the Crisis in Syria’, ASIL Insights 16, no. 11 (2012), http://www.asil.org/insights/volume/16/issue/11/un-security-council-and-crisis-syria (accessed 17 June 2015); Dapo Akande, ‘Self Determination and the Syrian Conflict – Recognition of Syrian Opposition as Sole Legitimate Representative of the Syrian People: What Does this Mean and What Implications Does it Have?’, EJIL: Talk!, 6 December 2012, http://www.ejiltalk.org/self-determination-and-the-syrian-conflict-recognition-of-syrian-opposition-as-sole-legitimate-representative-of-the-syrian-people-what-does-this-mean-and-what-implications-does-it-have/ (accessed 17 June 2015); Carsten Stahn, ‘Syria and the Semantics of Intervention, Aggression and Punishment. On “Red Lines” and “Blurred Lines”’, Journal of International Criminal Justice 11 (2013): 955–77.
48 Enzo Cannizzaro, ‘Responsabilità di proteggere e intervento delle Nazioni Unite in Libia’, Rivista di diritto internazionale 94 (2011): 821–4, 823–4; Bruno Pommier, ‘The Use of Force to Protect Civilians and Humanitarian Action: The Case of Libya and Beyond’, International Review of the Red Cross 93 (2011): 1063–83, 1079; Jeremy Sarkin, ‘Is the Responsibility to Protect an Accepted Norm of International Law in the post-Libya Era? How its Third Pillar Ought to be Applied’, Groningen Journal of International Law 1 (2012): 11–48, 21 and 23.
49 The responsibility to protect is not mentioned in the UK governmental statement Chemical Weapon Use by Syrian Regime – UK Government Legal Position, 29 August 2013, http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/chemical-weapon-use-by-syrian-regime-uk-government-legal-position (accessed 17 June 2015).
50 Meg Sullivan, ‘Justifying Crimea: President Putin Invokes R2P’, Brown Political Review, 11 April 2014, http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/2014/04/justifying-crimea-president-putin-invokes-r2p/ (accessed 17 June 2015).
51 Bosnian Genocide case, para. 430.
52 Ibid., para. 427.
53 Simma, ‘Genocide and International Court of Justice’, 262; William A. Schabas, Unimaginable Atrocities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 116–18; Marco Longobardo, ‘L'obbligo di prevenzione del genocidio al di fuori del proprio territorio come base della responsabilità di proteggere. Rilievi critici’, in Un Diritto senza terra? Funzioni e limiti del principio di territorialità nel diritto internazionale e dell'Unione europea/A LackLand Law? Territory, Effectiveness and Jurisdiction in International and EU Law, ed. Adriana Di Stefano (Torino: Giappichelli, 2015) 493–517.
54 See commentary on DARSIWA, Article 54, in James Crawford, Report of the International Law Commission on its Fifty-third Session, 137, para. 3.
55 A countermeasure is ‘the act of non-compliance, by a State, with its obligations owed to another State, decided upon in response to a prior breach of international law by that other State and aimed at inducing it to respect its obligation’ (Christian J. Tams, Enforcing Obligations Erga Omnes in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 20). See, generally, Carlo Focarelli, Le contromisure nel diritto internazionale (Milano: Giuffrè, 1994).
56 On this point, see Sicilianos, ‘The Classification of Obligations’, 1143; Giorgio Gaja, ‘In tema di reazioni alle violazioni di obblighi erga omnes’, in Ordine internazionale e valori etici, ed. Nerina Boschiero (Napoli: Editoriale Scientifica, 2004), 43–6, 45.
57 For the practice on countermeasures in case of violation of obligations erga omnes, see Linos-Alexander Sicilianos, Les réactions décentralisées à l'illicite: des contre-mesures à la légitime défense (Paris: LGDJ, 1990), 155–74; Tams, Enforcing Obligations Erga Omnes in International Law, 207–49.
58 Emanuele Cimiotta, ‘Le reazioni alla “sottrazione” della Crimea all'Ucraina. Quali garanzie del diritto internazionale di fronte a gravi illeciti imputati a grandi potenze?’, Diritti umani e diritto internazionale 8 (2014): 491–504.
59 Institut de Droit international, Krakow Session, Resolution of 27 August 2005, Article 5(c). See also Luigi Condorelli and Laurence Boisson De Chazournes, ‘Quelques remarques à propos de l'obligation des États de “respecter et faire respecter” le droit international humanitaire “en toutes circonstances”', in Études et essais sur le droit international humanitaire et sur les principes de la Coix-Rouge en l'honneur de Jean Pictet, ed. Christophe Swinarski (Genève/Dordrecht: Comité International de la Croix-Rouge/Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1984), 17–35, 31–2; Giorgio Gaja, ‘Obligations Erga Omnes, International Crimes and Jus Cogens: A Tentative Analysis of Three Related Concept’, in International Crimes of State, 150–60, 155–6; Karel Wellens, ‘General Observations’, in Public Interest Rules of International Law: Towards Effective Implementation, ed. Teruo Komori and Karel Wellens (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 15–51, 43; Christian J. Tams, ‘Individual States as Guardians of Community Interests’, in From Bilateralism to Community Interests. Essays in Honour of Judge Bruno Simma, ed. Ulrich Fastenrath et al. (Oxford: Oxford Universty Press, 2011), 379–405, 389–392.
60 Gaja, ‘In tema di reazioni alle violazioni di obblighi erga omnes’, 46; Tams, ‘Individual States as Guardians of Community Interests’, 388. With regard to genocide prevention, see Andreas Zimmerman, ‘The Obligation to Prevent Genocide: Towards a General Responsibility to Protect?’, in From Bilateralism to Community Interests, 629–45, 637.
61 Antonio Cassese, ‘Ex iniuria ius oritur: Are We Moving towards International Legitimation of Forcible Humanitarian Countermeasures in the World Community?’, European Journal of International Law 10 (1999): 23–30, 29. See also Francesco Francioni, ‘Balancing the Prohibition of Force with the Need to Protect Human Rights: A Methodological Approach’, in Customary International Law on the Use of Force: A Methodological Approach, ed. Enzo Cannizzaro and Paolo Palchetti (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 269–92, 277–8.
62 This theory was principally developed by Paolo Picone and this article is not the proper place to analyse it in depth. Among many works, see ‘La “guerra del Kosovo” e il diritto internazionale generale’, Rivista di diritto internazionale 83 (2000): 326–60; ‘La guerra contro l'Iraq e le degenerazioni dell'unilateralismo’, Rivista di diritto internazionale 86 (2003): 337–93; ‘L’évolution du droit international coutumier sur l'emploi de la force entre obligations “erga omnes” et autorisations du Conseil de Sécurité’, in Customary International Law on the Use of Force: A Methodological Approach, 305–19; ‘Le reazioni collettive ad un illecito erga omnes’, 5–47.
63 Paolo Picone, ‘Il ruolo dello Stato leso nelle reazioni collettive alla violazioni di obblighi erga omnes’, Rivista di diritto internazionale 95 (2012): 957–87, 972–4.
64 Picone, ‘La “guerra del Kosovo” e il diritto internazionale generale’, 344–5; Cassese, ‘Ex iniuria ius oritur’, 27; Francioni, ‘Balancing the Prohibition of Force with the Need to Protect Human Rights’, 285–7.
65 For example, the situation in Syria where there is not an injured state regarding the violations committed by the government against its own civilians (Picone, ‘Le reazioni collettive ad un illecito erga omnes’, 9).
66 Paolo Picone, ‘Unilateralismo e guerra contro l'ISIS’, Rivista di diritto internazionale 98 (2015): 5–27.
67 According to Francesco Francioni and Christine Bakker, ‘Responsibility to Protect, Humanitarian Intervention and Human Rights: Lessons from Libya to Mali’, Transworld (2013): 1–19, 4: ‘The difference between the second [i.e. traditional humanitarian intervention] and the third doctrinal strands [i.e. admissibility of forcible countermeasures] is that the second relies on a moral-political theory justification, while the third is based on a legal argument.’
68 William A. Schabas, ‘Attacking Syria? This Is the Crime of Aggression’, PhD Studies in Human Rights, 30 August 2013, humanrightsdoctorate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/attacking-syria-this-is-crime-of.html (accessed 17 June 2015).
69 On the relevance of obligations erga omnes on the ICJ's jurisdiction, see Paolo Picone and Maria Irene Papa, ‘La giurisdizione della Corte internazionale di giustizia e obblighi erga omnes’, in Comunità internazionale e obblighi “erga omnes”, ed. Paolo Picone, 3rd edition (Napoli: Jovene, 2013), 675–721.
70 Belgium v. Senegal case, paras 68–70. For some interesting remarks, see Maria Irene Papa, ‘Interesse ad agire davanti alla Corte internazionale di giustizia e tutela dei valori collettivi nella sentenza sul caso Belgio c. Senegal’, Diritti umani e diritto internazionale 7 (2013): 79–104.
71 Obligations concerning Negotiations relating to Cessation of the Nuclear Arms Race and to Nuclear Disarmament (Marshall Islands v. Pakistan), Application instituting proceedings against Pakistan, 24 April 2014, paras 35–6; Obligations concerning Negotiations relating to Cessation of the Nuclear Arms Race and to Nuclear Disarmament (Marshall Islands v. India), Application instituting proceedings against the Republic of India, 24 April 2014, paras 40–1; Obligations concerning Negotiations relating to Cessation of the Nuclear Arms Race and to Nuclear Disarmament (Marshall Islands v. U.K.), Application instituting proceedings against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 24 April 2014, paras 85–6.
72 Many scholars are sceptical about the chance that these cases reach the merit phase due to an alleged lack of the ICJ's jurisdiction. See Marco Roscini, ‘The Cases Against the Nuclear Weapons States’, ASIL Insights 19, no. 10 (2015), http://www.asil.org/insights/volume/19/issue/10/cases-against-nuclear-weapons-states (accessed 17 June 2015); Katherine Maddox Davis, ‘Hurting More than Helping: How the Marshall Islands’ Seeming Bravery Against Major Powers Only Stands to Maim the Legitimacy of the World Court’, 11 March 2015, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2577111 (accessed 17 June 2015).
73 Professor James Crawford, who is against the admissibility of countermeasures, frankly wrote: ‘Better to give States standing to the Court to protect what they perceive as global values than to leave them only with non-judicial means of dispute settlement, whether in the guise of countermeasures or under the rubric of “responsibility to protect”’ (James Crawford, ‘Responsibility for Breaches of Communitarian Norms: An Appraisal of Article 48 of the ILC Articles on Responsibility of States for International Wrongful Acts’, in From Bilateralism to Community Interests, 224–40, 225).
74 According to Article 1 common to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions, states parties must respect and ensure respect of the conventions. For the relationship between this provision and the responsibility to protect, see Laurence Boisson de Chazournes and Luigi Condorelli, ‘De la responsabilité de protéger, ou d'une nouvelle parure pour une notion déjà bien établie, Revue Générale de Droit International Public 110 (2006): 11–18. For the erga omnes character of some international humanitarian law norms, see Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, paras 155 and 157.