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Inhuman Wrongs Crimes Against Humanity in Theory, Law, and Politics

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Inhuman Wrongs Crimes Against Humanity in Theory, Law, and Politics Inhuman Wrongs Crimes against Humanity in Theory, Law, and Politics Goya, Third of May 1808 Government 94gl* Professor Cheryl Welch Fall 2016 [email protected] Thursday 2:00-4:00 617.495.5855 CGIS Knafel Building– K108 CGIS K151A Office Hours: by appointment Course Description This course examines the notion of a crime against humanity from the perspectives of moral theory, history, and contemporary international law and politics. After considering some philosophical perspectives on abuses whose wrongness has been termed “morally over- determined,” we turn to nineteenth-century cases of so-called scandals against humanity: slavery and expulsion or extermination of conquered peoples. We then trace the emergence of the concept of crimes against humanity in the twentieth century as a category of international crime at the intersection of human rights and humanitarian law and examine debates over the legalization offenses that “shock the conscience.” Finally, we turn to philosophical and political debates surrounding the prevention and prosecution of some contemporary crimes against humanity. *This course counts as a Government seminar or elective. It also counts toward the secondary concentration in Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights. Welch 94gl - fall 2016 - page 1 of 6 Course Requirements 1. Class participation (30% of grade) • Blog posts: Students are expected to have done the readings and to come to the seminar prepared to discuss them. Before each class (except for the class in which you are presenting), you will be expected to post a short response to the reading. Posts are due on Canvas by 8 am on Thursday morning. First post is due on Thurs., Sept. 8. • Class presentation: One or several of you will be assigned to present assigned readings or address particular questions during certain class sessions. I will pass out the presentation choices and poll you about your preferences in Week 2. • Short essays: Two very short essays (2-3 pp.), graded √, √+, or √- will contribute to your participation grade. The first is due on Thursday, September 22 before class; the second is due in conjunction with your class presentation. 2. Research design (30% of grade). Because this seminar aims to help you to pose a research question and to develop a strategy to answer it, you will be required to submit a proposal for your final paper and a preliminary bibliography. • Students are required to meet with me early in the semester to discuss paper proposals and brainstorm about resources. • Proposal and preliminary bibliography are due on THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20. 3. Final research paper: approximately 25 pp. (40% of grade) • Draft (10% of grade) due THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3 (last class meeting) • The last session of the seminar will be devoted to paper presentations. (5% of grade): THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3 (last class meeting) • Final paper (25% of grade) due THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15. Academic Integrity and Collaboration in Gov 94gl Discussion and the exchange of ideas are essential to academic work and are a large part of learning in a seminar. For assignments in this course, you are encouraged to consult with your classmates on the choice of paper topics and to share sources. You may find it useful to discuss your chosen research question with your peers, particularly if you are working on the same topic as a classmate. You should ensure, however, that any written work you submit for evaluation is the result of your own research and writing and that it reflects your own approach to the topic. You must also adhere to standard citation practices and properly cite any books, articles, websites, lectures, etc. that have helped you with your work. If you received any help with your writing (feedback on drafts, etc), you must also acknowledge this assistance. For a fuller statement and guide to citation style for this course, see the Canvas website under “Academic Integrity Policy.” Welch 94gl - fall 2016 - page 2 of 6 Course Materials The following books have been ordered at the COOP and should be purchased. They are also on course reserve. Gary Jonathan Bass, Stay the Hand of Vengeance: the Politics of War Crimes Tribunals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, 2nd edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Samer N. Abboud, Syria. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016. All other materials are available on the course website as links to articles or as pdfs and are organized by weeks under the “modules” tab. Schedule of Readings and Assignments Week 1 Introduction: What is “macrocriminality”? September 1 Handout: Some Statutory Definitions of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide Week 2 Theoretical Perspectives: September 8 Philosophical Discussions of Evils that Shock the Conscience • John Rawls, The Law of Peoples, “Introduction” and Selections from Part II: “The Second Part of Ideal Theory.” • Michael Walzer, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad, Part 1: “Moral Minimalism.” • Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, Preface, Chaps. 1, 3-7. • A Debate between Nagel and Williams in Koh and Slye, Deliberative Democracy and Human Rights: Thomas Nagel, “Personal Rights and Public Space” Bernard Williams, “In the Beginning was the Deed” Week 3 19th-Century “Scandals against Humanity” I: September 15 Slavery and British Abolitionism • David Brion Davis, “What the Abolitionists Were Up Against,” The AntiSlavery Debate, ed. Thomas Bender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), chap. 1, pp. 17-26. Welch 94gl - fall 2016 - page 3 of 6 Dinner and a • Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Movie: Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Amazing Grace 2005), Intro, chaps. 1-2, 4, pp. 1-40. 54-68. • David Brion Davis, “Explanations of British Abolitionism,” Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (Oxford: OUP, 2006), pp. 231-249. Week 3 • A Debate on the Meaning of Abolition 9/15/ Jenny S. Martinez “Slave Trade on Trial: Lessons of a Great Cont’d. Human- Rights Law Success” Boston Review, Sept./Oct. 2007 Samuel Moyn, “Of Deserts and Promised Lands: The Dream of Global Justice.” The Nation, February 29, 2012 Week 4 19th-Century “Scandals against Humanity” II: September 22 Extermination and Expulsion of Peoples by Settler Democracies • Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. (Cambridge: CUP, 2005), pp. 55-98. • Elazar Barkan, “Genocides of Indigenous Peoples: Rhetoric of First short Human Rights,” in Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, The essay due. Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), pp. 117-139. • Jeremy Waldron, “Superseding Historic Injustice,” Ethics 103 (October 1992) 4-28. Week 5 Legalizing the Metaphor I: Between the World Wars September 29 • Reading about legalism. TBA • Documents: Preamble to the 1899 Hague Convention (II) with respect to the laws and customs of war on land (Martens Clause) Triple Entente Declaration of 28 May 1915 denouncing Turkey • Bass, Stay the Hand of Vengeance, Chapters 3 “Leipzig” and 4: “Constantinople” Week 6 Legalizing the Metaphor II October 6 The Case of the Nazis and Nuremberg • Jonathan Glover, A Moral History of the 20th Century, Part 6, “The Will to Create Mankind Anew: the Nazi Experiment,” chaps. 32-38, pp. 317-364. • Judith Shklar, Legalism: Law, Morals, and Political Trials (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1964), pp. 151-179. • Bass, Stay the Hand of Vengeance, Chapter 5 “Nuremberg.” Welch 94gl - fall 2016 - page 4 of 6 • Roger S. Clark, “Crimes against Humanity at Nuremberg,” in Week 6 Georg G. Ginsburg and V. N. Kudriavstev, eds, The Nuremberg Oct. 6 Trial and International Law (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1990), pp. Cont’d. 177-199. • Film – Judgment at Nuremburg [On reserve] Week 7 Legalizing the Metaphor III October 13 • Kriangsak Kittichaisaree, International Criminal Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), chap. 2, “Ad Hoc International Tribunals and the International Criminal Court;” pp. 17-42; chap. 5, “Crimes Against Humanity,” pp. 85-128. • Richard A. Falk, “Assessing the Pinochet Litigation: Whither Universal Jurisdiction” • Reading on the Milosovic Trial, TBA. • Reading on ICC’s indictment of Omar Al-Bashir, TBA Week 8 Debates over International Legalism October 20 • M. Cherif Bassiouni, “Combating Impunity for International Crimes,” (71 University of Colorado Law Review, 2000). Proposal and • Eric A. Posner, The Perils of Global Legalism (Chicago: Preliminary University of Chicago Press, 2009), chap. 2, “The Flaws of Bibliography Global Legalism.” due this week • Peer Stolle and Toias Singlnstein, “On the Aims and Actual Consequences of International Prosecution of Human Rights Crimes,” International Prosecution of Human Rights Crimes, ed. Wolfgang Kalek, Michael Ratner, Tobias Singlnstein, and Peer Weiss (Springer, 2007). • Gerry Simpson, Law, War & Crime (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), chap. 3 “Law’s Subjects: Individual Responsibility and Collective Guilt,” pp. 54-78. Week 9 Preventing Inhuman Wrongs I: The Morality of Standing By October 27 • Thomas L.Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility,” Part I, The American Historical Review 90:2 (April 1985), pp. 339-361. • Peter Singer, “Bystanders to Poverty,” Ethics and Humanity: Themes from the Philosophy of Jonathan Glover, ed. N. Ann Davis, Richard Keshen, and Jeff McMahan (Oxford: OUP, 2010), pp. 185-201. • Jonathan Glover, A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, Part 6, Chapter 40, pp. 379-393, “Bystanders.” • Samantha Powers, “Bystanders to Genocide,” Atlantic (2001) Welch 94gl - fall 2016 - page 5 of 6 Week 10 Preventing Inhuman Wrongs II: November 3 Humanitarian Intervention and the R2P • J. S. Mill, “A Few Words on Non-Intervention” • Summary of "The Responsibility to Protect," Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. • A Debate on the Grounds for Intervention: Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977), chap. 6, “Intervention;” Response by Charles R.
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