Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON INTERVENTION AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY
and consequences of genocide and to advance policy studies on genocide prevention.
Founded in 1994, IAGS meets biennially in a conference format to consider comparative
research, new directions in scholarship, case studies, the links between genocide and massive
human rights violations, and prevention and punishment of genocide. Since being
established, conferences have taken place at (or under the auspices of) the College of William
and Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia), Concordia University (Montreal, Canada), the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis), the National
University of Ireland (Galway), Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, Florida), and the
University of Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina). The aim of IAGS conferences is to focus more
intensively on questions of genocide than is possible in the existing two-hour format of most
conferences and to draw colleagues from different disciplines into an interdisciplinary conversation.
In addition to the biennial IAGS conferences, the association has also published
scholarly works under its own imprint. Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal
is the official organ of the IAGS. The association has affiliate relationships with other
like-minded organizations such as the Institute for the Study of Genocide (New York) and
the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide (Jerusalem, Israel). Membership in the IAGS
is open to scholars, graduate students, and other interested persons worldwide.
International Bill of Rights. The International Bill of Rights, developed and established
under the auspices of the United Nations, is composed of three seminal parts: The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and two international covenants
adopted by the General Assembly in 1966—one on economic, social, and cultural rights and
the other on civil and political rights (and the means of implementation that are part and
parcel of the “Optional Protocol” to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). In
response to a challenge from UN secretary-general Kofi Annan (b. 1938), Canada’s
prime minister Jean Chrétien (b. 1934) announced the establishment of the International
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty during the United Nations
Millennium Summit in September 2000. The mandate of the commission was to encourage
and undertake a comprehensive global debate on the relationship between intervention and
state sovereignty, with an attempt at “reconciling the international community’s responsibility
to act in the face of massive violations of humanitarian norms while respecting
the sovereign rights of states.”
The ICISS was given the mandate to examine, analyze, and debate a wide array of
questions related to a host of legal, moral, political, and operational issues vis-à-vis the
question as to when, if ever, states can legitimately, collectively or individually, carry
out coercive—and, in particular, military—action against another state for the
express purpose of protecting people at risk in that state. The latter, then, constitutes
the so-called right of humanitarian intervention. An international research team
conducted extensive research in order to collect, examine, and present the latest and
best thinking on the issues of intervention and sovereignty and the relationship
between the two. Ultimately, the report’s primary theme became “The Responsibility
to Protect,” the concept that sovereign states have a distinct responsibility to protect
their own citizens from conflicts and violent actions carried out by groups and/or governmental
entities, and if and when sovereign states are either unwilling or unable to
do so, that responsibility must be upheld by the international community or constituent
parts of it.
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