Prior to the 19th century, the rules of war were temporary and informal, changing with each battle. No international rules existed. 

In 1864, 12 nations signed the first Geneva Convention, which guaranteed neutrality to medical personnel who would be identified by the special emblem of a Red Cross on a white background.  They protected civilians, medics, the wounded or prisoners of war, and banned weapons or methods of warfare likely to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering, such as hollow bullets or poison gas.  Such conventions have grown into a set of internationally-recognised principles. 

Today, more than 190 nation-states acceded to the conventions. 

The ‘victors’ justice’

The Nuremberg trial, during World War 2 between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, was the world’s first tribunal to hold a country, Germany and its fascist Nazi leaders, responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, with Nuremberg Charter as its legal instrument.  The Allies attempted to enforce international justice, widely-viewed as admirable, but were criticised for double standards and self-serving restrictions that compromised the trial’s fairness. 

Allied crimes were made exempt from prosecution, which led some observers to label the trial “victor’s justice”. 

In a letter dated 12 October 1945 to the 33rd president of the United States (US), Harry S. Truman, chief prosecutor Justice Robert H. Jackson for the US cited potential flaws in the trial that the defendants might exploit at the historic Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals. 

Although it was not his overall view, Justice Jackson wrote that the Allies “have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the Germans for. The French are also violating the Geneva Convention in the treatment of prisoners of war that our command is taking back prisoners sent to them. 

“We are prosecuting plunder, and our allies are practising it. We say aggressive war is a crime, and one of our allies assert sovereignty over the Baltic states, based on no title except conquest”. 

Genocide Convention 

In 1948, the Genocide Convention was drafted in the aftermath of the Nuremberg trial to give flesh and blood to the well-known dictum of the International Military Tribunal, according to which crimes against international law are committed by men – not by abstract entities – and only by punishing individuals who commit such crime can the provisions of international law be enforced. 

The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as “a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group in whole or in part”.  Genocide has continued to happen since the first genocide of the 20th century, the 1904-1908 Ovaherero/Nama genocide perpetrated by the fascist Imperial Germany. 

Others include the 1880-1920 Belgian genocide (in the Democratic Republic of Congo); the 1933-1945 Holocaust, the Nazi persecution of the Jews; the killing and disappearance of Mayans in Guatemala 1960-1969; the Rwanda genocide, 1994; the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia, 1995; the Yazidis genocide in Iraq and Syria perpetrated by the Islamic State, 2014-2018, as well as the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, 2018. 

On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, and remained the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict, so far.  The bombings killed between 150 000 and 246 000 civilians. 

Ironically, the US did not get international criminal sanctions for the 1945 bombings as what had happened to the Nazis. Since then, the US has bombed about 15 countries around the world.  In fact, imperialism has been the main cause of genocides in Africa. 

Israeli genocide 

Despite the enormity of these heinous acts of the past, genocides continue to occur around the world today. The often-quoted sentiment of “never again” has become “time and again”. 

The biggest episode of genocide is currently taking place in Gaza Strip, Palestine. 

During the Holocaust (1949-1945), the Nazis committed genocide against the Jews. Paradoxically, the Israeli leaders of a “Jewish State” are today sadly perpetrating horrors of genocide against innocent Palestinian people. 

Importantly, legal experts confirm that the Israeli apartheid occupation forces in Gaza are completing three genocidal acts, including the killing, causing of serious bodily harm, and measures calculated to bring about the destruction of the group, pointing to a mass level of destruction and total siege of necessities like water, food, fuel and medical supplies as evidence.  Also, an objective, methodological and detailed analysis conducted in part by the Boston University School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic as part of a report from the University Network for Human Rights, a consortium of human rights centres at colleges across the world, has released its findings.  The report concludes that “Israel has committed genocidal acts, namely killing, serious harming and inflicting conditions of life calculated, and intended
to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza”. 

A case of genocide against the Israeli leaders is currently underway at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, indicted by South Africa. The Genocide Convention establishes a duty on all state parties to take measures to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, including enacting relevant legislation and punishing all perpetrators. 

Ironically, the US, despite its delegates playing a key role in drafting the convention, did not become a party until 1988, a full forty years after it was opened for signature, and it did so with reservations, precluding punishment of the country United States of America if it were ever accused of genocide. Honestly, there can be no repeat of the “victor’s justice”. 

It had long gone.  

In a dramatic turn of events, South Africa has become a victim of intimidation of gigantic proportions by international criminal conspirators to drop the ICJ genocide case of 29 December 2023 regarding Israel’s genocidal conduct in the Gaza Strip. 

In the end, the dangers of genocide and mass atrocity shall never cease, unless the lessons of genocide’s past are both heeded and acted upon, and when some nation-states cease to act with absolute impunity. 

*Maj. Gen. (Rtd) J. B Tjivikua