Genocide

Essay # 7481

Ethnic Studies > Africa
Ethnic Studies > Conflict
History > African

Genocide

An historical look at the genocides perpetrated in Rwanda and Kosovo and the UN's involvement.

1,705 words () | 13 sources | MLA | 2002 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the historical context of these two ethnic cleansing genocides that occurred in the late twentieth century. It looks at lessons the world should have learned from the Holocaust in World War II and analyzes the United Nations' involvement and role in preventing these atrocities.

From the Paper:

"Many people who lived through World War II will never forget the sights of thousands of Jewish bodies thrown into mass graves after the Nazi Holocaust. To most people it was unimaginable- the extent of the death and destruction. Winston Churchill called it a "crime that has no name" (www.un.org 2001). Winston Churchill was correct in his observation. Despite the numerous occurrences in history, the word "genocide" as a legal term and an international sanction did not exist until 1951 (www.un.org 2001). It was 1951 that the U.N. made a treaty defining and criminalizing genocide, entitled The Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In the last fifty years, the world has witnessed many horrendous massacres of civilian populations, in Cambodia, Bangladesh, and elsewhere, for which the political will was lacking to organize a war crimes tribunal. Now, the international climate supports the creation of the first two war crimes tribunals since the Nazi's at Nuremburg, those for Rwanda and Kosovo."