Saturday, April 12, 2008

Anderson on Colonial Genocide and International Law

Rachel J. Anderson, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has posted an article, Redressing Colonial Genocide: The Hereros' Cause of Action Against Germany. It appeared in the California Law Review (2005). Here's the abstract:
In February 2003, the Herero People's Reparations Corporation filed a complaint against Germany in the District Court of the District of Columbia alleging violations of international law, crimes against humanity, genocide, slavery, and forced labor before, during, and after the German-Herero War (1904-07). The German government, modern scholars, and other commentators have long taken the position that genocides committed by colonial governments in the nineteenth century did not violate international law at that time. Arguments for this position rely, inter alia, on the belief that all forms of genocide were first criminalized and made punishable by the 1948 U.N. Convention on Genocide. However, an analysis of contemporaneous international customary and treaty law shows this position to be wrong and supports the position that colonial acts of annihilation in Africa were illegal by the end of the nineteenth century. This article further argues that this law was directly applicable to the German-Herero War. It concludes that the Hereros' case for legal redress is stronger than heretofore assumed and examine the implications for the claims of other similarly situated victims of genocide.