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Tracking Hate Speech Acts as Incitement to Genocide in International Criminal Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2017

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Abstract

In this article, I argue that we need a better understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the current debates in international law surrounding hate speech and inchoate crimes. I construct a theoretical basis for speech acts as incitement to genocide, distinguishing these speech acts from speech as genocide and speech denying genocide by integrating international law with concepts drawn from speech act theory and moral philosophy. I use the case drawn on by many commentators in this area of international criminal law, the trial of media executives for the roles they played in the Rwandan genocide through public speech acts by media entities insulting an ethnic group or advocating violence against an ethnic group. Each of these men were institutional leaders and were charged with using their positions within Rwandan society to distribute what I call genocidal hate speech, genocidal incitement speech, and genocidal participation speech. I argue for a distinction between these three types of speech, and a difference in individual criminal liability for the dissemination of each type of speech. I also argue that there should be a difference in individual criminal liability for speech acts within the context of an ongoing or recent genocide, and speech acts that can be separated from a site of mass violence.

Keywords

genocidehate speechinchoate crimesinternational criminal lawspeech act theory
Type
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURTS AND TRIBUNALS
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 523 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2017 

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References

1 See, e.g., J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (1975); C.A. MacKinnon, Only Words (1993); Langton, R., ‘Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts’, (1993) 22 Philosophy & Public Affairs 293 Google Scholar; Maitra, I., ‘Subordinating Speech’, in Maitra, I. and McGowan, M.K. (eds.), Speech & Harm: Controversies Over Free Speech (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 See L. Tirrell, ‘Genocidal Language Games’, in ibid., Maitra and McGowan, at 174–5; see also Semelin, J., ‘Toward a Vocabulary of Massacre and Genocide’, (2003) 5 Journal of Genocide Research 193 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Tirrell, supra note 2, at 175.

4 See, e.g., Benesch, S., ‘Inciting Genocide, Pleading Free Speech’, (2004) 21 World Policy Journal 62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benesch, S., ‘Vile Crime in Inalienable Right: Defining Incitement to Genocide’, (2008) 48 Virginia Journal of International Law 485 Google Scholar; Chandramouli, M., ‘Protecting Both Sides of the Conversation: Towards a Clear International Standard for Hate Speech Regulation’, (2012) 34 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 831 Google Scholar; Ron Davidson, H., ‘The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda's Decision in The Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al.: The Past, Present, and Future of International Incitement Law’, (2004) 17 LJIL 505 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gordon, G.S., ‘A War of Media, Words, Newspapers, and Radio Stations: The ICTR Media Trial Verdict and a New Chapter in the International Law of Hate Speech’, (2004) 45 Virginia Journal of International Law 139 Google Scholar; MacKinnon, C.A., ‘Prosecutor v. Nahimana, Barayagwiza, & Ngeze. Case No. ICTR 99-52-T’, (2004) 98 AJIL 325 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maravilla, C.S., ‘Hate Speech as a War Crime: Public and Direct Incitement to Genocide in International Law’, (2008) 17 Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law 113 Google Scholar; Orentlicher, D.F., ‘Criminalizing Hate Speech in the Crucible of Trial: Prosecutor v. Nahimana’, (2005) 12 New Eng. J. Int'l & Comp. L. 17 Google Scholar; Timmermann, W.K., ‘The Relationship between Hate Propaganda and Incitement to Genocide: A New Trend in International Law Towards Criminalization of Hate Propaganda?’, (2005) 18 LJIL 257 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilson, R.A., ‘Inciting Genocide with Words’, (2015) 36 Michigan Journal of International Law 277 Google Scholar; Zahar, A., ‘The ICTR's “Media” Judgment and the Reinvention of Direct and Public Incitement to Commit Genocide’, (2005) 16 Criminal Law Forum 33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 A. Ashworth, Principles of Criminal Law (1995), 462, quoted in Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu, Judgement, Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, TCh I, 2 September 1998, para. 555 (hereinafter Akayesu Trial Chamber Judgement).

6 Black's Law Dictionary, s.v. ‘inchoate’ (2004).

7 Timmermann, W.K., ‘Incitement in International Criminal Law’, (2006) 88 International Review of the Red Cross 823 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 826. I will turn to these questions and issues of luck and individual responsibility in Section 3.

8 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 999 U.N.T.S. 171 (hereinafter ICCPR).

9 Ibid., Art. 19.2.

10 Ibid., Art. 19.3.

11 Ibid., Art. 20.3.

12 A. Altman, ‘Freedom of Expression and Human Rights Law: The Case of Holocaust Denial’, in Maitra and McGowan, supra note 1; see also 1950 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 213 U.N.T.S. 222.

13 Handyside v. United Kingdom, App. No. 5493/72, 5 Eur. Comm'n H.R. Dec. & Rep., para. 49 (1976).

14 1976 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 993 U.N.T.S. 3, Art. 4(a).

15 Timmermann, supra note 4, at 259; see also J. Oraá, Human Rights in States of Emergency in International Law (1992), 144–68.

16 Oraá, supra note 15, at 140–1.

17 Timmermann, supra note 4, at 259; see also Pietraroia v. Uruguay, Comm. No. 44/1979 (27 March 1981); Garcia Lanza et al. v. Uruguay, Comm. No. 8/1977 (3 April 1980); Saldias de Lopez v. Uruguay, Comm. No. 52/1979 (29 July 1981) UN GAOR, 36th Sess., Supp. No. 40, at 176, 182; Jersild v. Denmark, 298 Eur. Ct. H.R. (Ser. A), (1995) 19 EHRR 1, at paras. 28–37; Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, Annual Report, 1985–6: Nicaragua (1986), 165–75.

18 See Chandramouli, supra note 4, at 834.

19 Ibid., at 835.

20 See Chaplinsky v. N.H., 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1942) (holding that certain forms of expression have little social value and do not communicate ideas and are thus not afforded First Amendment protection).

21 See Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003) (noting that a state can ban cross burning with intent to intimidate without violating First Amendment speech protections).

22 See Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969).

23 See Roth v. U.S., 354 U.S. 476, 484 (1957) (holding that obscene expression is without social importance).

24 See N.Y. v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 764 (1942) (holding that, on balance, the welfare of children should outweigh the interests of producers of child pornography).

25 See N.Y. Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279–80 (1964).

26 See R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 392–3 (1992) (holding that banning hate speech based on its content is impermissible).

27 Brandenburg, supra note 22, at 447.

28 F.F. Martin et al., International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law: Treaties, Cases, and Analysis (2006) 470; these countries include Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

29 Ibid.

30 Wilson, supra note 4, at 280; see also Racial and Religious Hatred Act, 2006, c. 1 (England and Wales).

31 Ohlin, J.D., ‘Incitement and Conspiracy to Commit Genocide’, in Gaeta, P. (ed.), The UN Genocide Convention: A Commentary (2009), 203 Google Scholar; see also Mugesera v. Canada, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, [2005] 2 S.C.R. 100, 2005 SCC 40 (Can.).

32 ‘International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg), Judgment and Sentences’, (1947) 41 AJIL 296; see also Ohlin, supra note 31, at 210. For a full account of the history of hate propaganda in international criminal law, see, e.g., Benesch, ‘Vile Crime or Inalienable Right’, supra note 4; Gordon, supra note 4; Gordon, G.S., ‘Speech Along the Atrocity Spectrum’, (2014) 42 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 425 Google Scholar.

33 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, 78 UNTS 277 (hereinafter Convention on Genocide).

34 Ibid., Art. II.

35 W. Schabas, Genocide in International Law: The Crimes of Crimes (2000), 257.

36 Convention on Genocide, supra note 33, Art. III.

37 Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, UN Doc. S/Res/955 (1994) (hereinafter ICTR Statute), Art. 2.

38 See Timmermann, supra note 7.

39 Ibid., at 834.

40 Ibid., at 835; see also Ad Hoc Committee Meeting, portions of report adopted in first reading, UN Doc. E/AC.25/W.4, (1948) (hereinafter Ad Hoc Committee), at 12.

41 Timmermann, supra note 7, at 837; see also Ad Hoc Committee, supra note 40, at 218 (Mr. Fitzmaurice).

42 Ibid., Timmermann.

43 Ibid., at 838; see also UN GAOR, 3rd session, Plenary Meeting, UN Doc. A/PV.179 (Mr. Katz-Suchy).

44 Prosecutor v. Nahimana, Barayagwiza, & Ngeze, Judgement and Sentence, Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, T. Ch. I, 3 December 2003 (hereinafter Media Trial Chamber Judgement); Prosecutor v. Fernando Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, and Hassan Ngeze, Judgement, Case No. ICTR-99-52-A, A. Ch., 28 November 2007 (hereinafter Media Appeals Chamber Judgement).

45 See, e.g., Benesch, ‘Inciting Genocide, Pleading Free Speech’, supra note 4; Benesch, ‘Vile Crime in Inalienable Right’, supra note 4; Davidson, supra note 4; Gordon, supra note 4; MacKinnon, supra note 4; Maravilla, supra note 4; Orentlicher, supra note 4; Timmermann, supra note 4; Wilson, supra note 4; Zahar, supra note 4.

46 Tirrell, supra note 2, at 217.

47 Ibid., at 184. Italics in original.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid., at 176.

50 Ibid., at 190.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid., at 191.

53 Ibid., at 192.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid., at 193.

56 Ibid., at 189.

57 See, e.g., Austin, supra note 1; see also J.L. Austin, ‘Performative Utterances’, in Philosophical Papers (1979).

58 Ibid.

59 Recently, R. Wilson has argued for the use of speech act theory to understand incitement in international criminal law. See Wilson, supra note 4. However, Wilson focuses on the issue of causation, rather than issues of responsibility and luck.

60 G.P. Fletcher, Basic Concepts of Criminal Law (1998), 173.

61 Ibid.

62 Kadish, S.H., ‘Foreword: The Criminal Law and the Luck of the Draw’, (1994) 84 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 679 Google Scholar, at 684–8.

63 Ibid.

64 Moore, M.S., ‘The Independent Moral Significance of Wrongdoing’, (1994) 5 Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 237 Google Scholar.

65 See ibid., at 270; see also R.A. Duff, ‘Acting, Trying, and Criminal Liability’, in Action and Value in Criminal Law (1993).

66 Moore, supra note 64, at 270.

67 Rothe, D.L. and Schoultz, I., ‘International Criminal Justice: Law, Courts, and Punishment as Deterrent Mechanisms?’, in de Lint, W., et al. (eds.) Criminal Justice in International Society (2014), 153 Google Scholar; see also Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Transcript, ICC-01/04–01/06-T-223-ENG, 7 January 2010, at 9–10; Prosecutor v. Bosco Ntaganda, Decision on the Prosecutor's Application for Warrants of Arrest, ICC-01/04–02/06–20-Anx2, PTC I, 21 July 2008, at 22–4.

68 Keenan, P., ‘The New Deterrence: Crime and Policy in the Age of Globalization’, (2006) 91 Iowa Law Review 505 Google Scholar, at 516.

69 See ibid., at 516; see also Dutton, Y., ‘Crime and Punishment: Assessing Deterrence Theory in the Context of Somali Piracy’, (2014) 46 George Washington International Law Review 608 Google Scholar.

70 See, e.g., Klabbers, J., ‘Just Revenge? The Deterrence Argument in International Criminal Law’, (2001) 12 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 253 Google Scholar; Sloane, R.D., ‘The Expressive Capacity of International Punishment: The Limits of the National Law Analogy and the Potential of International Criminal Law’, (2007) 43 Stanford Journal of International Law 39 Google Scholar, at 81; see also DeGuzman, M.M., ‘Harsh Justice for International Crimes?’, (2013) 39 Yale Journal of International Law 1 Google Scholar, at 15–16.

71 See, e.g., Cronin-Furman, K., ‘Managing Expectations: International Criminal Trials and the Prospects for Deterrence of Mass Atrocity’, (2013) 7 International Journal of Transitional Justice 434 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Media Trial Chamber Judgement, supra note 44, para. 1029.

73 For example, the Appeals Chamber found that, ‘the Trial Chamber could reasonably conclude from the totality of the evidence relied on by it that, at CDR meetings, Appellant Barayagwiza had himself used slogans calling for the extermination of Tutsi, such as “gutsembatsemba,” “tuzabatsembatsemba” and “tuzitsembatsemdea,” and that the use of these expressions was a determining fact for the purpose of proving his genocidal intent’. Media Appeals Chamber Judgement, supra note 44, para. 539.

74 Akayesu Trial Chamber Judgement, supra note 5, para. 557.

75 See Media Trial Chamber Judgement, supra note 44, para. 1014.

76 See, e.g., Media Trial Chamber Judgement, supra note 44, paras. 480, 952–3, 1015.

77 Media Trial Chamber Judgement, supra note 44, para. 1011.

78 Media Appeals Chamber Judgement, supra note 44, para. 678.

79 I use the term ‘genocidal hate speech’ rather than merely ‘hate speech’ because I am concerned with speech that occurs within the general context of a genocide or other atrocities.

80 Media Appeals Chamber Judgement, supra note 44, para. 692.

81 Genocidal hate speech could also be seen as an illocutionary act when the speaker intends to cause a specific harm, but this is not necessary for genocidal hate speech.

82 See generally Tirrell, supra note 2.

83 A. Des Forges, ‘Leave None to Tell the Story’: Genocide in Rwanda (1999), at 87.

84 Wilson dismisses the possibility of incitement to genocide as a perlocutionary act out of hand. He states, correctly, that because incitement ‘is an inchoate crime, intent to commit genocide focuses upon the locutionary and illocutionary aspects of a speech act, not on the perlocutionary dimensions’. Wilson, supra note 4, at 309. I analyze incitement to genocide as a perlocutionary act in order to dismiss commentators who claim that incitement is a perlocutionary act, and to show the unsatisfying result with respect to attributing responsibility and the presence of luck. This analysis proves useful when I turn to speech acts constituting genocide in Section 5. Ultimately, Wilson and I both agree with Austin that, with respect to incitement, there is ‘a break at a certain regular point between the act (our saying something) and its consequences (which are usually not the saying of anything)’, and that this break occurs between illocutions and their consequences. Austin, supra note 1, at 112–13; see also Wilson, supra note 4, at 310.

85 Kurzon, D., ‘The Speech Act Status of Incitement: Perlocutionary Acts Revisited’, (1998) 29 Journal of Pragmatics 571 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 572.

86 Ibid., at 574.

87 Gu, Y., ‘The Impasse of Perlocution’, (1993) 20 Journal of Pragmatics 405 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 422.

88 Ibid.

89 Wilson, supra note 4, at 311.

90 Orentlicher argues that causation is not an appropriate requirement for the inchoate crime of incitement. She claims that, ‘as an inchoate offense, incitement is a crime regardless of whether it has its intended effect (in the case of incitement to commit genocide, provoking listeners to commit genocide). If the criminality of incitement does not turn upon its impact, it is not readily apparent that this offense should be considered to have “ended” when it achieves its aim’. Orentlicher, supra note 4, at 45. Ohlin notes that, ‘there is a more practical consequence for treating incitement as an inchoate offence that does not require a completed genocide: it relieves the prosecution of the burden of establishing a causal connection between the incitement and the completed genocide—an evidentiary obstacle that may be difficult to achieve with anything other than circumstantial evidence’. Ohlin, supra note 31, at 193.

91 Kurzon, supra note 85, at 585.

92 L. May, Genocide: A Normative Account (2010) 191.

93 I would argue that this should be the practice of international courts and tribunals, but it has not happened thus far. This would go far in denying moral and legal luck to culpable bystanders.

94 Media Trial Chamber Judgement, supra note 44, para. 1015.

95 Ibid., para. 965.

96 Ibid., para. 952.

97 Media Appeals Chamber Judgment, supra note 44, paras. 468, 601–2, 636.

98 See generally Media Appeals Chamber Judgment, supra note 44.

99 ICTR Statute, supra note 37, Art. 6(1).

100 MacKinnon, supra note 4, at 327; see Media Trial Chamber Judgement, supra note 44, paras. 974, 975, 977A.

101 ICTR Statute, supra note 37, Art. 3.

102 Media Trial Chamber Judgement, supra note 44, para. 1072.

103 Ibid., para. 1073.

104 As with any crime there is a mens rea requirement, noted in the prior sentence, but crimes against humanity do not have a dolus specialis intent requirement.

105 ICTR Statute, supra note 37, Art. 3.

106 MacKinnon, supra note 4, at 329–30.

107 Gordon, supra note 32, at 452.

108 See ibid., at 454.

109 Allen, J.M. and Norris, G.H., ‘Is Genocide Different? Dealing with Hate Speech in a Post-Genocide Society’, (2011) 7 Journal of International Law & International Relations 146 Google Scholar, at 172.

110 Gordon, supra note 32, at 453; see also Post, R., ‘Hate Speech’, in Hare, I. and Weinstein, J. (eds.) Extreme Speech and Democracy (2009) 123 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

111 Grundgesetz, Criminal Code in the version promulgated on 13 November 1998, Federal Law Gazette [Bundesgesetzblatt] I at 3322, last amended by Article 3 of the Law of 2 October 2009, Federal Law Gazette I at 3214, trans. Dr. Michael Bohlander, (hereinafter GG), Art. 5. Available at www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1200.

112 Stein, E., ‘History against Free Speech: The New German Law against the “Auschwitz” and Other “Lies”’, (1986) 85 Michigan Law Review 277 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 280.

113 Ibid., at 281.

114 ‘German High Court decides novel issue in holding that German law may impose criminal liability on foreign owners of internet websites who design their sites to stir up racial hatred within German society’, 2001 International Law Update : ITEM01033011.

115 GG, supra note 111, Art. 130.

116 Ibid.

117 Ibid.

118 Ibid.

119 Ibid.

120 Ibid., Art. 130a.