Congratulations to Paola Gaeta, who has received an SNSF grant for her new research project Holding the Line: Genocide, War, and International Responsibility. Hosted by the Global Governance Centre, the four-year project investigates genocide in wartime and clarifies the theoretical and evidentiary issues surrounding the international responsibility of states and the criminal responsibility of individuals for genocide and other punishable acts, such as complicity in genocide.
More About the project
The Genocide Convention prohibits genocide in time of peace and in time of war alike, yet most genocides of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have been committed in the course of armed conflict. The relationship between genocide and the conduct of warfare nonetheless remains conceptually unsettled and legally underexplored.
The project will investigate the neglected interplay between the prohibition of genocide and the rules of international humanitarian law (IHL) on targeting and on humanitarian relief, asking whether conduct tolerated under IHL (such as incidental civilian deaths or restrictions on humanitarian assistance) may nonetheless amount to genocide when carried out with genocidal intent. It will examine the evidentiary and conceptual challenges of establishing genocidal intent in military operations, where violence against civilians may appear permitted by the laws of war. And it will address the accountability of actors beyond states and individuals: non-state armed groups and de facto entities, corporate and financial actors, media and social media platforms, and international organisations.
Alongside academic publications, the project will produce a podcast series, Genocide and War, and policy briefs for prosecutors, judges, states and NGOs engaged in accountability efforts.
Holding the Line: Genocide, War, and International Responsibility
About PAOLA GAETA
Paola Gaeta is Professor of International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute and its incoming Director of Studies, as well as Co-President of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. Her research addresses the international rules governing the repression of atrocity crimes and their relationship with the law of state responsibility, including the dual responsibility of individuals and states for genocide, the immunities of state officials, and the allocation of criminal jurisdiction among national and international courts. She is the author of Cassese's International Law and Cassese's International Criminal Law, editor of major commentaries on the Rome Statute, the Genocide Convention and the Geneva Conventions, and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Criminal Justice. She also co-hosts the podcast series In and Around War.