Genocide Watch

Genocide Watch is a non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C. which campaigns against genocide, and the various stages running up towards genocide. It was founded by Gregory Stanton in 1999.^[1][2][3][4]

Genocide Watch

Founded	1999
Founder	Gregory Stanton
Website	genocidewatch.com

Context

Gregory Stanton in 2012

Genocide Watch is a US registered non-profit and coordinator of the Alliance Against Genocide, which includes 125 organizations in 31 countries, including the Minority Rights Group, the International Crisis Group, the Aegis Trust, and Survival International.^[5][6]

Under the leadership of Stanton, Genocide Watch has formed alliances with dozens of human rights leaders, such as Baroness Kennedy and Ewelina Ochab from the Coalition for Genocide Response.^[7]

Stanton has criticized the term "ethnic cleansing", calling it a term invented by Slobodan Milošević as a term used for the denial and cover-up of genocide, stating it whitewashes the crimes and impedes forceful action to stop genocide.^[8] He also rejects the "only intent" doctrine that the International Court of Justice used in Bosnia v Serbia and Croatia v Serbia to find that because Serbia's intent was "ethnic cleansing," Serbia's "sole" and "only" intent was not genocide, Serbia had not violated the Genocide Convention.^[9]

Board members

Its board of advisers includes former commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda Roméo Dallaire, former Nuremberg Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz, former US Ambassador to the United Nations and former Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power,^[10][11] and former UN Special Advisers for the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng and Alice Nderitu.^[12]

Analysis tool

Genocide Watch is known for its publicising of Stanton's analysis tool and policy model known as the ten stages of genocide. This enumerates steps whereby a society may evolve towards committing genocide, running from initially increasingly classifying people as "them" or "us", via a number of intermediate stages, including 'polarisation', to the genocidal 'extermination' (a term often used by the killers rather than 'murder', because they do not believe their victims to be fully human) and afterwards to a post-genocide phase when the perpetrators deny that they committed any crimes.^[13] At an earlier stage in its development, the tool referred to eight stages of the process,^[14] before adding the 'Discrimination' and 'Persecution' stages.

History

Genocide Watch was founded in 1999.^[15][2]

In 2010, Genocide Watch was the first organization to assert that the 1980s Gukurahundi massacres in Zimbabwe met the definition of genocide,^[16] calling for the prosecution of Zimbabwean leaders including president Robert Mugabe.^[17][18]

In 2020, Genocide Watch joined other human rights groups urging the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate the actions of the Chinese government regarding Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region, and demand that China end persecution of Uyghurs that amount to acts of genocide.^[19]

In the case of Bosco Ntaganda within the International Criminal Court investigation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Genocide Watch submitted amicus curiae observations^[20] along with the Antiquities Coalition and Blue Shield International, on the interpretation of attacks on cultural property in the Rome Statute.^[21]

Genocide Watch has also indicated numerous times that the Armenians are at risk of genocide due to Azerbaijan's "unprovoked attack" on Armenia in 2022 and its blockade and offensive of Artsakh (2022–2023).^{[22][23][non-primary source needed]}

In recent years, Genocide Watch have also published a number of reports and statements: the 'United States of America Report' highlighting genocidal aspects of racial tension in the US,^[24] a number of statements regarding the Russia-Ukraine Genocide which conclude that Russia's Ukraine War is genocidal,^[25] and statements regarding the Israel-Gaza conflict, which describe both Hamas' initial attack and some of Israel's military response as genocidal.^{[26][non-primary source needed]}