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no abstract available ; The first issue of the VLR showcases its international and interdisciplinary focus. In the first article, Rosa Duarte and Clara Ifsits confront a question that is as sensitive as it is topical, ie the obligation Austria – and by extension, other European countries – may have to prosecute and punish returning ISIS fighters for the crime of genocide against the Yazidi community, both from the perspective of national public law and of international criminal law. The second article, by Sebastian Grund, deals with the Greek financial crisis and subsequent debt restructuring of 2012, and explores the possibilities and limits of enforcing sovereign debt in court. In the fourth article of this issue, Hannah Berger tackles the impact European and national legislation has on the use of toxic chemicals in the textile industry, and explores legal and extra-legal avenues of enforcing the compliance of textile producers and resellers. Finally, Maria Y. Lee confronts the thorny issue of categorisation in anti-discrimination law, proposing a solution that reconciles category-based legislation with the need for a broader and more inclusive perspective on discrimination. New content will be added at regular intervals; we therefore encourage our readers to register for the content notification service on the VLR's homepage.

Cover -- Endorsements -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Cédric Herrou, Citizen Activism, and the Global Refugee and Migration Crisis -- Wai Wai Nu's Fight for Gender Equality and the Recognition of Identity -- Organization of the Book -- 1. Understanding Human Rights as Lived Experience -- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) -- Human Rights as a 20th and 21st Century Political Project -- Causes of Human Rights Violations -- The Emergence of New Human Rights -- Conclusion -- 2. Equality and Non-Discrimination -- The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination -- Systemic Racism in Law Enforcement in the United States of America -- The Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief -- China's Repression of Uyghurs Under the Guise of Counterterrorism -- Conclusion -- 3. The Interdependence of Human Rights -- The Flint Water Crisis -- ISIS and Sexual Violence against Yazidi Women in Northern Iraq -- Conclusion -- 4. International Crimes -- The Crime of Genocide -- The Rwandan Genocide -- Crimes Against Humanity -- War Crimes -- Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes in Syria -- Conclusion -- 5. Justice and Reconciliation after Atrocity -- Human Rights Trials and Argentina -- South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission -- The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission -- Conclusion -- 6. Making Human Rights Change -- Human Rights Defenders -- Human Rights Organizations (HROs) and Human Rights Advocacy -- International Human Rights, National Implementation -- The International Human Rights Machinery -- Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights/UN Human Rights -- The Human Rights Council -- Special Procedures -- Treaty Bodies -- Conclusion.

Despite the catch-cry bandied about after the Holocaust, "Never Again", genocides continue to destroy cultures and communities around the globe. In this collection of essays, Australian scholars discuss the crime of genocide, examining regimes and episodes that stretch across time and geography. Included are discussions on Australia's own history of genocide against its Indigenous peoples, mass killing and human rights abuses in Indonesia and North Korea, and new insights into some of the core twentieth century genocides, such as the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. Scholars grapple with ongoing questions of memory and justice, governmental responsibility, the role of the medical professions, gendered experiences, artistic representation, and best practice in genocide education. Importantly, genocide prevention and the role of the global community is also explored within this collection. This volume of Genocide Perspectives is dedicated to Professor Colin Tatz AO, an inspirational figure in the field of human rights, and one of the forefathers of genocide studies in Australia. Kirril Shields is a member of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He teaches at The University of Queensland and The University of Southern Queensland. Kirril is an Auschwitz Jewish Center Fellow, and a Fellow of the Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilisation, Royal Holloway. Nikki Marczak is a member of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute's 2016 Lemkin Scholar. Her research focuses on Armenian women's experiences and the current Yazidi Genocide by ISIS.

The international community remains unwilling to protect vulnerable populations against genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, as evidenced by international oversight of the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides.1 This paper will examine this issue through a case study of the Islamic State's (IS) persecution, ethnic cleansing, and unrecognized genocide of Shi'a Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. While the United Nations Security Council has labeled IS' attempts to exterminate Iraq's Christian and Yazidi populations as genocide, little efort has been made to recognize, investigate, or prosecute IS' crimes against the Shi'a. As I argue, the Islamic State's systematic killing and cultural destruction of Shi'a Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria constitutes genocidal conduct under the Genocide Convention. As such, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has an obligation to recognize and investigate such activities through the creation of an international criminal tribunal dedicated to prosecuting members of IS for atrocities committed against the Shi'a. I further argue that use of veto power by permanent members of the Security Council should be restricted in the face of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes to ensure that the UN fulflls its guiding principles to prevent and punish atrocity crimes. I will also explain the legal signifcance of prosecuting a non-state actor for genocide at the ICC and the impact that this recognition would have on humanitarian policy, the integrity of early warning models for genocide, and justice for the Shi'a victims of the Islamic State's brutality.

AbstractThe Islamic State (IS), which controlled significant territory in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017, engaged in a wide repertoire of violence against civilians living in these areas. Despite extensive media coverage and scholarly attention, the determinants of this pattern of violence remain poorly understood. We argue that, contrary to a widespread assumption that the IS wielded violence indiscriminately, it systematically targeted different social groups with distinct forms of violence, including sexual violence. Our theory focuses on ideology, suggesting it is a necessary element of explanations of patterns of violence on the part of many armed actors. Ideologies, to varying extent, prescribe organizational policies that order or authorize particular forms of violence against specific social groups and institutions that regulate the conditions under which they occur. We find support for our theory in the case of sexual violence by IS by triangulating between several types of qualitative data: official documents; social media data generated by individuals in or near IS-controlled areas; interviews with Syrians and Iraqis who have knowledge of the organization's policies including victims of violence and former IS combatants; and secondary sources including local Arabic-language newspapers. Consistent with our theory, we find that the organization adopted ideologically motivated policies that authorized certain forms of sexual violence, including sexual slavery and child marriage. Forms of violence that violated organizational policies but were nonetheless tolerated by many commanders also occurred and we find evidence of two such practices: gang rape of Yazidi women and forced marriage of Sunni Muslim women.

En este artículo se analiza cómo el Estado moderno y colonial se conforma a través de formas específicas de escritura (la Constitución, las leyes, los decretos, los comunicados, la violencia burocratizada) las cuales, instantáneamente, convierten al Estado en genocida y femicida. Los escritos políticos son tanto históricos como contemporáneos ya que, al desplazarse a través del tiempo y del espacio, cruzan fronteras, forjan programas y políticas de Estado que hacen del genocidio y del femicidio algo irreductible a consideraciones antropocéntricas. En este sentido, el artículo sostiene que los escritos políticos transforman los contextos que describen. Dichos escritos son inherentes al Estado nación y a su insaciable propósito de dominación y destrucción sistemática de las condiciones ecológicas y formas de vida, así como necesarios para traducir y probar la violencia política y estatal moderna. Con un enfoque interdisciplinar, el artículo demuestra cómo la violencia de género (violencia sexual), el secuestro y la trata de mujeres se convirtieron en los temas de escritura del Estado iraquí. Al final, se plantea una discusión sobre el silenciamiento infinito de la violencia genocida en Irak, caracterizada por tres décadas de impunidad ante la violencia sexual y los secuestros de mujeres durante la Operación al-Anfal, de los recientes genocidios y femicidios y de cómo después de tres décadas de violencia sexual ejercida en al-Anfal, de violaciones y de secuestros de mujeres, junto con el genocidio y el femicidio del Estado Islámico contra los yazidíes, todo acto genocida continúa infinitamente silenciado en Irak.

The religious minorities have been part of Modern Iraq since it was founded in 1921 and they can be distinguished from the majority by their customs, traditions, beliefs and histories. Moreover, historically, Iraq (and Iraqi Kurdistan) has been the cradle of most of the religious minorities in the region. Iraqi religious minorities such as Jews, Christian, Yazidis, Sabean-Mandaean, and Kākāʾi are considered the oldest communities of Iraq history. They are considered to be, in some ways, the indigenous groups of Iraq. Republican Iraq underwent a period of immense socio-political change which impacted significantly on religious minorities in particular. Over time they, and the newer religious minorities like the Bahaʾi, began to face severe discrimination, which led to their being considered inferior to the majority. This, in turn, led to occasional extreme persecution and forced displacement campaigns often undertaken by the successive Iraqi governments and subsequently by the (Muslim) majority. This study focuses on social, political and historical factors pertaining to the lives of Iraqi religious minorities, and attempts to uncover the sequence of events that led to the current phenomenon of religious minorities fleeing their home countries in order to preserve their traditions. This study is based on an analytical and descriptive method and should be considered a historical research of events in the light of available archival documents, legal sources and press articles. This dissertation is divided into ten chapters. In first and second chapters the methodological and theoretical framework applied is discussed, as well as an overview of the concept of "minority" as well as definitions of religious minorities in Iraq. Chapter three and four deal with the contextualization of the historical and socio-political frameworks that inform the background of this dissertation which relates religious minorities with their backgrounds in the period of Monarchical Iraq (1920-1958). Chapter five discusses the religious minorities during the first republic of Iraq 1958-1963. This era is significant in that it was a time of unprecedented change, one which formed the interim between the Monarchical Era and the era of the nationalists. Furthermore, the first republic is significant because it constitutes a kind of 'golden age' for all Iraqi minorities. Chapters six, seven and eight are the main focus of this dissertation. They are primarily concerned with the second republican era, which is the period of the two ʿĀrifs (1963-1968). This particular era was one of conflict which saw the emergence of subsidiary identities. Chapter six examines the rise of sectarianism and confessionalism in Iraq. Chapter seven engages with the scattered religious minorities (SRM), under the republican eras after 1963 up to the present time. This chapter introduces the situation of three scattered religious minorities throughout Iraq: the Jews, Bahaʾi, and Sabean-Mandaeans. In chapter eight, the focus shifts to the geographically-concentrated religious minorities (GCRM). This chapter deals with three religious minorities: the Kākāʾi, Christians and Yazidis, all of whom dwell in the so-called Disputed Territories, a region which is disputed by the two parties involved in the conflict in Iraq: The Central Government of Iraq (CGI) and the Kurdish Movement. Chapter nine and ten discuss the prospective dimensions of political developments in Iraq in relation to religious minorities after 1968. In chapter nine, the impact of change in the legislation pertaining to the rights of religious minorities is examined, as well as judicial rights in the Iraqi courts, with a focus on the Law of Civil Status No.65/1972 in particular. The final chapter traces socio-political developments within the religious minorities, beginning with the last Farhūd of the Jews. This period saw re-forging the case of the Iraqi Christians, the renewed controversy over Yazidi Identity among disparate Kurdish political and religious movements, and ongoing demographic change brought about by forced Islamisation in Yazidi areas. The Sabean-Mandaean minority also experienced a period of transition; their status weakened, their welfare deteriorating from that of an organized minority to one whose existence and religious identity were threatened. In the case of the Kākāʾis, this period shows their situation is in the transmission from domestic conflict to distinctive religious identity. whereas pressure on the Bahai (whose religion had been previously banned) was relaxed somewhat, allowing them a cautions sense of new-found freedom. In the conclusion, the hypotheses of this thesis are revisited to investigate what implications the research findings may have beyond the immediate historical and socio-political context of Iraqi religious minorities. Religious minorities have endured much persecution in Monarchical Iraq and thus, it is from Monarchical Iraq that this research begins before proceeding to explore the case of the minorities in Republican Iraq. The policies of discrimination in Iraq assumed many forms such as enactments and laws or governmental or administrative acts that led to division and discrimination. Although these policies of discrimination affected all segments of Iraqi society, it was particularly detrimental to religious minorities that were already suffering at the hands of the majorities. They faced an unequalled degree of religious stigmatization and discrimination. This has created a form of shared collective memory which consists of a prevailing sense of alienation, social inequality and detrimental stereotypes that is shared by all non-Muslim minorities in Iraq. It is noteworthy that, although there was discrimination of religious minorities in Iraq, the nature of such discrimination was highly dependent on the political situation. This is because various Iraqi governments viewed the religious minorities differently and also dealt with them as such. Importantly, as this study illustrates, the religious minorities were not only affected by political currents but also by social and religious currents within Iraq. No radical change occurred in the thought and inclinations of the dominating powers, nor did such change occur within national movements which were in the position to influence both the ruling system and the state institutions. Besides, religious and sectarian belonging became a means upon which these powers relied to consolidate their power. No current or influential political party in Iraq to date has succeeded in establishing a nation state, nor has it succeeded in integrating the Iraqi communities to achieve equality in a manner which maintains the ethnic, religious and cultural variety within the country. Rather, policies of sectarianism have kept the religious minorities away from actual political participation in state institutions and in government. Such marginalization and political dysfunction could have been avoided if representation had been assured by virtue of population (i.e. the quota system) and not by political affiliation. However, as the historical eras show, the deep-rooted nature of such divisions and the lack of mutual trust between the different communities have led to the current long-endured conflict, which in turn has virtually fragmented all communities within Iraq. Against this historical backdrop of division and inequality, the sectarian and confessional issue quickly emerged in post Baʿthist Iraq. Indeed, all the unprecedented developments currently taking place in Iraq are tentativeness the result of the actions or the inaction of past regimes in Iraq. The various religious minorities in Iraq suffered systematic acts of oppression and extermination in different periods as follows. The ongoing oppression of the Jews ended with their exile from Iraq after two bouts of violent dispossession and killing referred to as the First Farhūd (1941-1952) and the Second Farhūd (1968-1973). Similarly, Christians were subjected to ongoing oppression and persecution. This began with a massacre which took place in 1933 and it continued until a second persecution after the coup of 1963. Their situation was not to improve in all of this time, 2003 when they were harshly targeted and eliminated from Iraq. The Yazidi also suffered, between 1935 and 1946 in particular and again after 1963. Their regions were divided between the province of Kurdistan and the central government of Iraq from 1991-2003. They were systematically targeted by Islamic groups, the most recent example of which is ISIS' invasion of Sinjar and the Plain of Nineveh and the act of genocide which they carried out against the Yazidi. Other minorities such as the Sabean-Mandaean, Bahaʾi, Kākāʾi and others have suffered a similar fate and are currently fleeing Iraq.

La presente investigación analiza, a través de los conceptos de seguridad societal y securitización, la amenaza existencial que ha representado el Estado Islámico para los Estados de Siria e Irak y para las comunidades minoritarias que habitan en sus territorios. De este modo, comprende al salafismo-yihadista como un discurso que securitiza la religión, el cual establece la necesidad de eliminar el orden político impuesto en Medio Oriente y de perseguir toda representación del politeísmo (shirk) e infidelidad (kafir) para hacer frente al enemigo en una – supuesta – guerra en contra del islam. Por lo tanto, apelando a una identidad del "buen musulmán", el Estado Islámico ha fomentado el sectarismo y la violencia intercomunitaria como estrategias para desestabilizar los Estados y ha implementado una campaña sistemática, al borde del genocidio, para eliminar la presencia de las minorías, como los yazidíes y los cristianos. ; This work analyses, through the concepts of securitization and societal security, the existential threat that has represented the Islamic State for the States of Syria and Iraq and for the minority communities living on their territories. Thus, it includes the salafi-jihadism as a speech act that securitized religion, which establishes the need to eliminate the political order imposed in Middle East and persecute any representation of infidelity (kafir) and polytheism (shirk) to cope with the enemy in a - alleged - war against Islam. Therefore, appealing to a "good Muslim" identity, the Islamic State has fostered sectarianism and inter-communal violence as strategies to destabilize States and has implemented a systematic campaign, on the brink of genocide, to eradicate the presence of minorities as Yezidis and Christians.

The year 2015 was marked by, among other things, the centenary of the genocide of Armenians and Assyrians. Wherever their diaspora was established, in particular in France, colloquia and various commemorations were organised to remember these massacres knowingly organised by the jean-Turkish triumvirat (Ismail Enver, Talaat Pacha and Djemal Pacha) after those perpetrated by the Sultan Abdulhamid between 1895 and 1896. At a time of great failure of the Ottoman Empire, these ultranationalist leaders saw as a clear example the expulsion of these Armenian and Assyrian Christian elements in order to purify the political and social body of a Turkish nation from their point of view at risk. Moreover, because they were established mainly in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire, these populations were accused of being the fifth column of an orthodox Russia driven by its tropism towards the south and its warm seas. One hundred years later, the world is witnessing the same, if not ethnic, cleansing policy in the region, at least religious. It is no longer the case of Turkish ultranationalists, but radical Islamists, or messianic neosalafists, of the Islamic State and, without targeting them exclusively, this new tragic episode is still affecting Christians. Replacing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Islamic State was proclaimed on 29 June 2014 by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (of his true name Ibrahim al-Badri) in Mosul, the former biblique Nineveh. In this city of northern Iraq, non-Sunni populations (Christians and Yazidi) then have to choose between conversion, 'glaive' or tax. All this in a context of violence and forced Islamisation of their places of worship. At the beginning of August, the then military front of the Kurdish Regional Government (GRK) in the north of the city ended up in the hands of Da'esh, which took over the Nineveh Plain and the city of Qaraqosh. As in Mosul, Christian populations must undergo conversion or taxation when they are not exterminated. In anticipation of this, most of ...

Few events have caused more shock and condemnation in recent years than the images of the destruction of cultural heritage in Syria. International law expressed since the early times a great concern for preservation of cultural heritage in conflict scenarios, including effective tool to prosecute the most responsible. The necessity to provide protection for cultural heritage sites during armed conflicts and accountability for the perpetrators of crimes against cultural heritage lead to the development of a strong legal framework. The focal point of this work is to highlight how the attacks against cultural heritage occurred in Syria should not always be seen as isolated incidents but as aggressions that bear a relevance and a severe impact on the whole attacked population. Such consideration is paramount once the episodes are examined under the lenses of international criminal law, that criminalises the conducts as war crimes and crimes against humanity, while additionally giving them a relevance in the reconstruction of genocidal mens rea. Undoubtedly, some attacks, perpetrated by all sides of the conflict, had a political or military aim at their roots: prevention of the location's use, obstacles to other targets or to the creation of a path or convenient location. Examples are the damages to the Crac des Chevaliers castle, the shelling of the Old Souk of Aleppo and the city of Raqqa that are all characterised for their strategic position and their relevance in military operations. Furthermore, jihadist groups certainly operated a religious, cultural and iconoclastic-oriented destruction accompanied with a strong financial opportunistic component in the spread looting and selling of easily transferrable objects. However, limiting the episodes of destruction to iconoclasm and extremists' campaigns against "false idols" means ignoring the complexity behind attacks to tangible cultural heritage, both of universal and local value. Indeed, destruction was also part of cultural cleansing campaigns sought by extremist armed groups seeking to eradicate what is conceived as not concurrent with their vision and way of life. After a brief reconstruction of the framework concerning the protection of cultural heritage committed in Syria under ICL, three topical episodes occurred during the course of the conflict will be analysed to draw the attention on the double nature of intentions behind attacks against cultural property in Syria and Iraq, to highlight the coexistence of different international crimes and to give a comprehensive understanding of the actors involved and of the different reasons behind the attacks. The chosen episodes are: (a) Crac des Chevaliers; (b) the Old city of Palmyra; (c) the destruction of Yazidi cultural heritage and cultural cleansing occurred in Syria and Northern Iraq. The unprecedent extension of cultural eradication in Syria and Iraq requires immediate actions from the international community to avoid impunity for the committed crimes and, to conclude the analysis, a brief examination of the possible way forward will be provided.