{"id":17338,"date":"2022-05-04T12:15:42","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T10:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/?p=17338"},"modified":"2022-05-05T09:42:03","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T07:42:03","slug":"editorial-17-on-ukraine-and-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/editorial-17-on-ukraine-and-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial #17: On Ukraine and Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is May, the war in Ukraine has been going on for over two months, and there are fears that<\/a> the Russian aggression might spread further into Moldova. April is the month that marks the anniversaries of two genocides, the Tutsi and the Armenian. In the last month, the world has also learned about Bucha. Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General, commemorating Tutsi victims, wrote<\/a> the genocide \u201cwas neither an accident nor unavoidable\u201d. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, emphasised<\/a>: \u201cBucha did not happen in one day\u201d. Years of propaganda, inciting hatred and dehumanizing Ukrainians have laid the ground for it.<\/p>\n

Raphael Lemkin referred to the Soviet attempts to destroy the Ukrainian nation, as the \u201cclassic example\u201d<\/a> of genocide \u2013 the term he coined and that was recognized as an international crime. Yet, Holodomor<\/a> (literary \u201cto kill by starvation\u201d) of Ukrainians in 1932-33 \u2013 an artificial famine perpetrated by Soviets expropriating grain, but also any other means of subsistence \u2013 is recognized as genocide by only 17 states. In 2022, atrocities committed by Russian troops in the occupied regions of Ukraine, generate a sense of recurrence, and have revived the discourse of genocide(s) against Ukrainians<\/a>. Evidence amounts that in an occupied Kherson region, a Ukrainian agricultural hub, the Russian army now confiscates the grain<\/a>, creating a strong flashback to Soviet weaponization of hunger<\/a>. Soviet flags<\/a> are flown and statues of Lenin<\/a> are erected. The Russian brigade responsible for the Bucha victims, received<\/a> an honorary title from Putin, state-run news agency RIA Novosti calls for<\/a> \u201cde-Ukrainization\u201d, the Soviet-developed idea of \u201cbrotherly nations\u201d is repeated<\/a> in the West. The Lemkin Institute is convinced<\/a> that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Are we doing enough to support Ukraine? The Ukrainian ambassador in Germany, Andrij Melnyk, has been very outspoken in his criticism. The context of these statements \u2013 an existential threat to Ukraine and its people \u2013 affects not only the perception of the diplomat\u2019s criticism from a moral standpoint. As Nathanael van der Beek explains in his blogpost<\/a>, such statements are fully in line with what the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations allows. ICJ proceedings regarding allegations of genocide are ongoing<\/a>, and Mykola Gnatovsky<\/a>, newly elected Ukrainian judge to the European Court of Human Rights, is resolute<\/a> about a fight against impunity: \u201cWe don\u2019t need explanations why this can\u2019t be done. We need to find the way to make this possible.\u201d While Caroline von Gall underlines Russia\u2019s current pattern of denying apparent breaches of the law of armed conflict in her review<\/a> of Michael Riepl\u2019s recently published monograph on Russia\u2019s approaches to International Humanitarian Law; Annegret Hartig looked<\/a> at the potential prosecution of the crime of aggression in other states, and Johannes Block at the chances of prosecution<\/a> of war crimes in Germany. Yet, it ought to be remembered that the crime of genocide must not only be punished but also prevented<\/a> \u2013 an obligation that rests with each State towards its population, but also with the international community<\/a>. Reports from Mariupol<\/a>, Kramatorsk<\/a>, Irpin<\/a>, Chernihiv<\/a> to mention just few places, indicate that we are terribly failing.<\/p>\n

Is the United Nations\u2019 system fulfilling its purpose in the maintenance of international peace and security? Tarcisio Gazzini is positive about the role of the United Nations<\/a>. Ant\u00f3nio Guterres flew to Kyiv after a visit to Moscow, to experience a missile strike<\/a> from Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Amid the paralysis of the UN Security Council due to Russia\u2019s veto power, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine\u2019s Permanent Representative in the UN, brought<\/a> an argument about Russia\u2019s membership \u2013 the country is neither among the signatories of the UN Charter, nor UN\u2019s founding member; Russia\u2019s taking over the USSR seat in the UN Security Council was not put to the vote in the General Assembly \u2013 referring to Article 4 UN Charter. In the meantime, the General Assembly passed<\/a> a resolution allowing it to convene a session when a veto is cast in the Security Council, and debate the situation over which the veto was invoked.<\/p>\n

Discussions of potential peace treaties are already under way, and Kirsten Schmalenbach with Alexander Prantl examined<\/a> their conditions, while Ralf Lewandowsky analysed<\/a> what Russia\u2019s disregard for the Budapest Memorandum means for future security guarantees. Jay\u00a0Ramasubramanyam revisited<\/a> the \u2018Myth of Difference\u2019 (B.S. Chimni) with view to refugees from Ukraine and from the Global South.<\/p>\n

The most vulnerable are hit the hardest. As Ukraine is one of the world\u2019s top grain exporter<\/a>, the war in Ukraine could plunge more than 1\/5 of humanity into poverty, destitution and hunger unseen in decades<\/a>. Alba Grembi examined specifically search and rescue obligations in a situation of armed conflict<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Elon Musk reached<\/a> a deal to buy Twitter, and already rejected<\/a> the idea of blocking Russian news sources, referring to himself as a \u201cfree speech absolutist\u201d. In this context, we must be reminded that a constant stream of hate speech<\/a> and disinformation<\/a> from Russian accounts constitutes a threat to people of Ukraine \u2013 \u201cFirst comes the dehumanization. Then comes the killing\u201d.<\/a> We mourn<\/a> the passing of Joseph Raz, a preeminent legal philosopher, whose discussion<\/a> of free speech is slightly more sophisticated than \u201cfree speech absolutism\u201d. And we are committed to not remain silent, to take sides, to listen and to advocate for action against the atrocities committed in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is May, the war in Ukraine has been going on for over two months, and there are fears that the Russian aggression might spread further into Moldova. April is the month that marks the anniversaries of two genocides, the Tutsi and the Armenian. In the last month, the world has also learned about Bucha. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6639],"tags":[],"authors":[3575,7010],"article-categories":[3577],"doi":[],"class_list":["post-17338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","authors-dana-schmalz","authors-polina-kulish","article-categories-our-own-news"],"acf":{"subline":""},"meta_box":{"doi":"10.17176\/20220504-182042-0"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17338"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17343,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17338\/revisions\/17343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17338"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=17338"},{"taxonomy":"article-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-categories?post=17338"},{"taxonomy":"doi","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doi?post=17338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}