Criminalizing Atrocity: The Global Diffusion of Genocide Law

• In Event: From Local to Global: Legal Action in Multiple Jurisdictions

Abstract

Criminal law is a powerful tool that many countries are increasingly employing to regulate social issues as diverse as online harassment and mass atrocities. Since 1948, when the newly formed United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, 116 countries have incorporated genocide into their domestic criminal codes. In this paper, I draw on sociological theories of criminal law-making and the globalization of law to explain how a constellation of social processes induced or impeded the spread of genocide laws over the past seven decades. For instance, I ask whether countries with a history of state-led atrocities implement national genocide laws to signify a “break with the past,” or whether such countries avoid national laws for fear that officials will be held culpable for past wrongs. Applying event-history analysis to an innovative dataset encompassing all national laws criminalizing genocide, I present dynamic estimates of the influence of cultural and structural factors on the likelihood that a given country has criminalized genocide. I then relate these findings to the question of how to achieve criminal accountability for genocide when globalization ensures that both law and genocide suspects travel worldwide.

Author

• Suzy McElrath, University of Minnesota