Journal of International Criminal Justice Advance Access originally published online on July 4, 2005
Journal of International Criminal Justice 2005 3(3):562-578; doi:10.1093/jicj/mqi054
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The Darfur Report and Genocidal Intent
* Professor of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, International Criminal Law and Public International Law; Director of the Institute for Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, University of Cologne; Claus.Kress{at}uni-koeln.de.
The author argues that the Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, in excluding any genocidal intent in the Government authorities of the Sudan, while leaving open the possibility for individual state officials or members of militias to entertain such intent, did not duly take into account the various views on genocidal intent put forward in legal literature. In the author's opinion, genocide — typically, that is, for all practical purposes — requires a collective activity of a group, state or entity — activity in which individual perpetrators participate. As for the genocidal intent of individual perpetrators — in this typical scenario, according to the author — one should distinguish between (i) the view, upheld by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), as well as the Commission of Inquiry, that such intent is the aim physically to destroy a protected group, and (ii) the more correct view that such intent consists of the individual's (a) knowledge of a genocidal campaign and (b) at least dolus eventualis as regards the at least partial destruction of a protected group. This legal construction of genocidal intent does not, however, lead to conclusions substantially different from those reached by the Commission of Inquiry with regard to the mental attitude of the Sudanese Government and militias: as they did not act pursuant to a collective goal to destroy a protected group, no genocidal intent could materialize. However, contrary to the Commission's conclusions, it follows from this proposition that no genocidal intent could be found either if, in some instances, single individuals were held to have acted with the desire to see the protected group destroyed. For, in this event, the two requirements for individual genocidal intent would be lacking, namely knowledge of a genocidal campaign (on the premise that no such campaign was carried out), and a fortiori dolus eventualis.
1 Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the Secretary General. Pursuant to SC Res. 1564, 18 September 2004, Annex to Letter dated 31 January 2005 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2005/60, 1 February 2005,
518. 2 This is not to diminish the importance of the Report's passages on crimes against humanity and war crimes (committed in non-international armed conflicts).
3 The reasoning put forward in 494–501 of the Report (supra note 1) to support the so-called ‘subjective standard’ will, no doubt, spark an intensive scholarly debate, but falls outside the scope of this commentary.
4 518 of the Report, supra note 1.
5 520 of the Report, supra note 1.
6 The Commission's understanding of ‘part’ of a group is contained in 492 of the Report (supra note 1) and appears to be broadly in line with the rather expansive recent international case law, in particular of the ICTY, concerning members of a group living in geographically limited areas; for a word of caution against overexpansion, see C. Kreß, Münchener Kommentar zum Strafgesetzbuch, Vol. 3 (München: Verlag C.H. Beck, 2003), 220a/ 6 StGB, at 658 (marginal note 77).
7 Cf. 515, 517, 518 and 520 of the Report, supra note 1.
8 Cf. 515 of the Report, supra note 1.
10 On the German case law on genocide, see R. Rissing-van Saan ‘The German Federal Supreme Court and the Prosecution of International Crimes Committed in the Former Yugoslavia’, 3 Journal of International Criminal Justice (2005) 381.
11 Judgment, Krsti
(IT-98–33-T), 2 August 2001, 580.
12 For a somewhat more detailed analysis than will be given in the following, see C. Kreß, supra note 6, at 656–657 (marginal note 72).
13 This qualifier does not, however, apply to the alternative of deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; in this case, the (collective) conduct described as actus reus of the crime has, in and of itself, the potential to lead to the physical destruction of at least part of the group.
14 This activity will, in most instances, be collective in nature.
15 491 of the Report, supra note 1.
16 This comment is not concerned with the ‘criminal intent required for the underlying offence’ because the latter does not give rise to problems of interpretation as difficult and important as those regarding the intent to destroy.
17 Judgment, Krsti, supra note 11, 549; this has been confirmed by the Elements of Crime, adopted pursuant to Art. 9 ICCSt., which — for all alternatives of the genocidal actus reus — require that ‘[t]he conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against that group’, unless the rather theoretical case arises that the conduct in question ‘could itself effect such destruction’.
18 Judgment, Akayesu (ICTR 96–4-T), 2 September 1998, 498 (which is, however, somewhat inconsistent with 520 of the same judgment).
19 Judgment, Krsti (IT-98–33-A), 19 April 2004, 134; the Trial Chamber's judgment in the same case (supra note 11) remained ambiguous: in 571, the Trial Chamber required that the perpetrator acted with the ‘goal’ to destroy at least part of a group but when applying this legal standard to the facts in 622 and 634, the Chamber found it sufficient that the accused knew that he contributed to an overall genocidal activity.
20 Cf. A.K.A. Greenawalt, ‘Rethinking Genocidal Intent: The Case for a Knowledge-Based Interpretation’, 99 Columbia Law Review (1999), at 2259 and 2288.
21 Derecho Penal Internacional: Especial consideración del delito de genocidio (Madrid, Editorial Tecnos, 1999), 259 et seq.; cf. also the article written by the same author, ‘Die Tatbestände der Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit und des Völkermord im Römischen Statut des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs’, 112 Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft (2000) 395.
22 H. Vest, Genozid durch organisatorische Machtapparate (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2002) 104 et seq.
23 M.C. Bassiouni and P. Manikas, The Law of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (Irvington-on-Hudson: Transnational Publishers, 1996), 527; Kreß, supra note 6, marginal note 82.
24 For details, see F. Le Gunehec, ‘Élément moral de l’infraction’, Juris-Classeur Pénal. Code Pénal, Vol. 1 (Éditions du Juris-Classeur, 1998), Art. 121–3: fascicule 20, 19 et seq. and 29 et seq.
25 Cf. C. Grynfogel, ‘Crimes contre l’humanité’, Juris-Classeur Pénal. Code Pénal, Vol. 2 (Éditions du Juris-Classeur, 2002), Arts 211–1 to 213–5, fascicule 10, 92: ‘Il reste á évoquer l’élément moral du génocide, qui nécessite toujours un dol spécial. Mais ils se déduit désormais de l’existence d’un plan concerté, condition matérielle préalable qui devra être établie, le fait d’agir en execution de celui ci relevant, à proprement parler, du dol spécial requis pour engager la responsabilité de l’auteur d’un genocide.’
26 For details, see K. Gehrig, Der Absichtsbegriff in den Straftatbeständen des Besonderen Teils des StGB (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1986), passim (on German law); B. Gukelberger, Die Absichtsdelikte des Schweizerischen Strafgesetzbuches (Bern: Verlag Herbert Lang & Cie, 1968), 20 et seq. (on Swiss law).
27 For a classical expression of this view, see K. Binding, Die Normen und ihre Übertretung, Vol. 2 (Leipzig: Verlag von Felix Meiner, 1916) 1166 et seq. A. Gil Gil's reasoning in favour of the knowledge-based approach to genocidal intent is strongly influenced by this long-standing line of thought (supra note 21, at 238). For a general discussion of the — controversial — interpretation of the concept ‘intención’ under Spanish criminal law, see J.C. Mir, Curso de Derecho Penal Espanol, Parte General II (Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 1998), at 153, who argues in favour of the possibility to interpret the concept broadly in including dolus eventualis.
28 For Germany, see G. Jakobs, Strafrecht. Allgemeiner Teil (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1991), 280; there is also an interesting old Dutch case to support that view: Hoge Raad, Judgment of 11 April 1899, Weekblad van Het Recht, 7268. The reference to many national formulations of the crime of forgery should not be too hastily dismissed as inappropriate because of the evident phenomenological differences between this crime and the crime of genocide; what matters here is a structural analogy as regards a specific legal problem of construction and it may be recalled that the District Court of Jerusalem draw a structural analogy of precisely such a nature in its judgment in the Eichmann case; Judgment of 12 December 1961, 36 International Law Reports (1968) 234, 194. The District Court stated: ‘We shall be forgiven if we take an example which may appear trivial but which in fact serves to clarify what we have said.’
29 Cf. the definition in s. 5, 2 of the Austrian Criminal Code.
30 Where the word ‘Vorsatz’ is used in such a context by the legislator, Austrian criminal lawyers often speak of ‘erweiterter Vorsatz’ to denote the specificity; a good example for the use of ‘Vorsatz’ in that sense is s. 223 Austrian Criminal Code on forgery; here, a perpetrator of the crime may forge a document with the knowledge of another person's goal to subsequently use that document to prove a right; the same result can be reached under s. 267 of the German Criminal Code on the basis of a knowledge-based interpretation of the word ‘Absicht’; cf. K. Gehrig, supra note 26, at 88 et seq.; for virtually the same approach concerning s. 251 of the Swiss Criminal Code, see the Judgment of the Schweizerische Bundesgericht of 10 September 1976, Band 102 der Amtlichen Sammlung der Entscheidungen des Schweizerischen Bundesgerichtes (1976), 191 and 195.
31 Cf. W.A. Schabas, Genocide in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 217 et seq.
32 Often reference is made to the US Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987 (Proxmire Act), S. 1851, s. 1091(a).
33 G. Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part, 2nd edition (London: Stevens & Sons Ltd, 1961), 49.
34 Supra note 23 (second set of italics added).
35 ICTY, Trial Chamber, supra note 19, 571.
36 Supra note 20, at 2270 et seq.
37 This is clear from the appellate judgment in Krsti, supra note 19, 138; the ICTR's approach to the question differs technically but not on substance; starting from the Akayesu judgment, the ICTR distinguishes between aiding and abetting within the meaning of Art. 6(1) and aiding and abetting as a form of complicity in genocide under Art. 2(3)(e) of its Statute; while the former type of individual criminal responsibility is supposed to require the higher-purpose standard (Akayesu judgment, supra note 18, 547), the knowledge-based approach is held to apply as regards the latter form of participation into the crime (ibid., 540 et seq.). In our context, it is not the technical difference of construction but the substantive congruity in result that matters.
40 Whether E. David, Principes de droit des conflits armés, 3rd edition (Brussels: Bruylant, 2002), 756 et seq. argues in favour of such an ‘evidentiary solution’ to our problem is not entirely clear to this commentator: ‘Autrement dit, l’intention peut être degagé objectivement de circonstances de fait, ce qui laisse place à une interpretation de la réalité qui peut varier selon les juges’ (italics added).
42 Judgment of 12 December 1961, 36 International Law Reports (1968) 228, 183.
43 In Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Viking: New York, 1965; 1994), at 26 and 54 (to which Greenawalt has already referred in our context, supra note 20, at 2282, note 113), H. Arendt identifies as the truly disturbing aspect of the trial the fact that Eichmann claimed that ‘he "personally" never had anything against the Jews’ and that ‘[d]espite all efforts of the prosecution, every one could see that this man was not a "monster"’.
44 Supra note 42; it may well be that the following elements adduced by the Court warranted its conclusion; this is of secondary interest for the purpose of this comment — what matters is the structural problem evidenced by the Eichmann case.
47 H. Vest, ‘Humanitätsverbrechen, Herausforderung für das individualstrafrecht?’, 113 Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft (2001) 486.
48 Supra note 20, at 2279 et seq.
49 R. Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), 93.
50 Article 25(3)(c) ICCSt. poses the additional problem that it — oddly — contains a purpose requirement as regards a number of derivative forms of criminal responsibility such as aiding and abetting. The resulting difficulties are left aside in this commentary because of their secondary importance.
51 This is true, with the notable exception of the actus reus of ‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’, which describes the collective activity.
52 For the purpose of this commentary, it may suffice to say that the doctrine is alien to German criminal law.
54 The last common element of the elements of the crime of genocide adopted pursuant to Art. 9 ICCSt. makes this interplay explicit.
55 The difference, of course, remains that the genocide definition also covers the theoretical case that the conduct of an individual perpetrator ‘could itself effect such [the group's] destruction’.
56 The famous declaration of the governments of France, Great Britain and Russia of 28 May 1915 reads as follows: ‘En présence de ces nouveaux crimes de la Turquie contre l’humanité et la civilisation, les Gouvernements alliés font savoir publiquement à la Sublime Porte qu’ils tiendront personnellement responsables des dits crimes tous les membres du Gouvernement Ottoman ainsi que ceux de ses agents qui se trouveraient impliqués dans de pareils massacres’, cited from United Nations War Crimes Commission (ed.), History of the United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Development of the Laws of War (London: HMSO, 1948), 35.
57 See Art. 211–1 of the Nouveau Code Pénal.
58 At this point, one notes a slight nuance compared with Greenawalt's approach (see supra text accompanying note 20) because the latter appears to include, as one alternative, a collective activity having the ‘manifest effect’ to destroy at least part of the protected group. In light of the fact, recognized by Greenawalt himself, that the protected group must be the target of the collective activity, Greenawalt's ‘manifest effect’ alternative appears problematic.
59 Interestingly, the Report appears to deviate from its own standard when it highlights the ‘possibility that in some instances single individuals, including Government officials, may entertain a genocidal intent’. Can one conceive of ‘single individuals’ foreseeing as substantially certain that a collective activity will effectively result in the destruction of at least part of the group if a collective goal to achieve such a result does not exist?
61 i.e. where the individual perpetrator does not dispose of the means to destroy part of the group alone.