Gregory Stanton | |
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 Stanton in 2012 | |
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Gregory H. Stanton is an American jurist, academic and human rights activist. He is best known for his work in the area ofgenocide studies.
Stanton is a former research professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at theGeorge Mason University inFairfax County,Virginia, United States. He is the founder and president of Genocide Watch,[1] the founder and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project,[2][3] and the Chair of the Alliance Against Genocide. From 2007 to 2009 he was the president of theInternational Association of Genocide Scholars.
Stanton comes from the lineage of women's suffrage activistElizabeth Cady Stanton, andHenry Brewster Stanton, a notableAbolitionist. He worked as a voting rights worker inMississippi, aPeace Corps Volunteer in theIvory Coast, and asChurch World Service/CARE Field Director inCambodia in 1980.[4][5]
Stanton was the research professor inGenocide Studies andPrevention at theSchool for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Arlington, Virginia, until his retirement in 2019.[6][7] From 2003 to 2009 he was the James Farmer Professor in Human Rights at theUniversity of Mary Washington inFredericksburg, Virginia.[8] He has been a Law Professor atWashington and Lee University,American University, and theUniversity of Swaziland. He has degrees fromOberlin College,Harvard Divinity School,Yale Law School, and a Doctorate inCultural Anthropology from theUniversity of Chicago. He was a fellow at theWoodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2001–2002).[4]
Stanton was a law professor atWashington and Lee University from 1985 to 1991, was a Fulbright Professor at theUniversity of Swaziland, and was a professor of Justice, Law, and Society at theAmerican University. From 2003 to 2009, he was the James Farmer Professor in Human Rights at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Stanton founded theCambodian Genocide Project atYale in 1981 and since then has been a driving force to bring theKhmer Rouge to justice.
Stanton was the Chair of the American Bar Association Young Lawyer's Division Committee on Human Rights and a member of the A.B.A.'s Standing Committee on World Order Under Law. Stanton was a legal advisor to Rukh, the Ukrainian independence movement (1988–1992), work for which he was named the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America's 1992 Man of the Year.
Stanton served in theState Department (1992–1999). At the State Department he drafted theUnited Nations Security Council resolutions that created theInternational Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, theBurundi Commission of Inquiry, and theCentral African Arms Flow Commission. He also drafted theU.N. Peacekeeping Operations resolutions that helped bring about an end to theMozambican civil war. In 1994, Stanton won the American Foreign Service Association's W. Averell Harriman Award[9] for "extraordinary contributions to the practice of diplomacy exemplifying intellectual courage," based on his dissent from U.S. policy on theRwandan genocide.[10]
Stanton wrote the State Department options paper on ways to bring the Khmer Rouge to justice inCambodia. Stanton was deeply involved in theU.N.-Cambodian government negotiations that brought about the creation of theKhmer Rouge Tribunal, for which he drafted internal rules of procedure.
Stanton is best known for his authorship ofThe Ten Stages of Genocide, a model of the genocidal process that the US State Department and UN have used in predicting and taking steps to prevent genocide. His Ten Stage model is used in courses on genocide in schools and colleges around the world.
In 1999 Stanton founded Genocide Watch.[11] From 1999 to 2000, he also served as co-chair of the Washington Working Group for theInternational Criminal Court.
In 2004, Stanton published a proposal to establish an Office for Genocide Prevention at the UN.[12] With other members of the International Campaign to End Genocide, he met with UN officials to lobby for the proposal. In 2004 in Stockholm, Secretary General Kofi Annan announced the creation of the Office of the UN Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide.[13]
In 2007, Stanton was elected President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, to serve until 2009.[14] He served as First Vice President of the Association from 2005 to 2007. In 2013, the organization gave Stanton its Distinguished Service Award and made him a Life Member.[15]
In 1989, after leading a genocide prevention training program for officials from Rwanda and surrounding countries, Stanton met with President Juvénal Habyarimana to ask him to remove ethnic identities from the Rwandan national identification cards because the ID cards could be used to identify people to be killed in a genocide. He advised President Habyarimana that if action were not taken to prevent it, Rwanda would have a genocide within five years.[16]
After the Genocide against the Tutsi broke out in Rwanda in 1994, the Director General of the US State Department Foreign Service, Genta Hawkins Holmes, ordered Stanton to Washington, DC and appointed him to the International Organizations UN Political bureau to guide US response in its aftermath. Stanton went to Rwanda with the UN Commission of Inquiry and co-authored its report, which recommended establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Stanton drafted UN Security Council Resolutions 955 and 978, which established the ICTR and its jurisdiction and called on UN members to extradite persons in their territories suspected of participation in the genocide. When the ICTR had administrative problems in its first year, Stanton went to Arusha, Tanzania and Kigali, Rwanda and recommended reforms to the UN, including appointment of a new Registrar and new Deputy Prosecutor.[citation needed]
The ICTR convicted 62 defendants for genocide, finally fulfilling Raphael Lemkin's dream that the Genocide Convention would become enforceable law.[citation needed]
In 2010, Stanton demanded thatRobert Mugabe be prosecuted for thecrime of genocide. He proposed a "Mixed UN-Zimbabwean Criminal Tribunal" inspired by theKhmer Rouge Tribunal, adding, "Mugabe's reign of terror must end."[17]
In 2012, Stanton called for the United States to release "all diplomatic and intelligence cables relating to theGukurahundi massacres" ofZimbabwe and to explain the U.S. decision "to remain silent", in order to "clear its conscience".[18]
In December 2024, Stanton and the rest of the "Gaza taskforce" at Genocide Watch determined thatIsrael is committing agenocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They argue that Israel's intentional bombardment of civilian infrastructure and starvation of civilians fulfills the Genocide Convention's definition of genocide, which includes "Killing members of the group" and "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part".[19]
While they condemnedHamas as a "genocidal terrorist organization that must be defeated", they also said that this does not excuse "committing genocide" against Palestinians or "dehumanizing" them.[19]
Stanton and the taskforce concluded that there should be an immediate ceasefire,release of all hostages, a surrender by Hamas, anend to Israel's blockade on Gaza, and global cooperation to diplomatically resolve the conflict.[19]
Stanton has accusedIran – particularlyMahmoud Ahmadinejad – ofincitement to genocide, explaining that the constant calls by the Iranian regime to destroy Israel directly advocate genocide.[20][21] Stanton referenced speeches by Ahmadinejad calling for the destruction of Israel and advocating thatIsraeli Jews should be transferred toGermany andAustria. He described Iran's proposals as incitement to genocide and advocacy offorced population transfer.[22] Stanton wrote:
Iran is the only country since Nazi Germany that has openly expressed its genocidal intent to wipe another nation off the map while pursuing a program to develop nuclear weapons. Few believed that Hitler was serious about his genocidal intentions until Nazis carried out the Holocaust. The Iranian President denies that the Holocaust even happened.
Stanton congratulatedAngela Merkel for opposing Iran'snuclear program, and also praisedCanada's Ministry of Foreign Affairs forrecalling the Canadian Ambassador to Iran.
Stanton has condemned Iran'snuclear program, adding that NATO should protect Israel to safeguard the country from a possiblenuclear missile strike.[21][22]
In an article for theMail and Guardian, Stanton acknowledged theIsaaq genocide that occurred inthe Democratic Republic of Somalia underSiad Barre. He advocated for therecognition of Somaliland as a separate state fromSomalia, arguing it could "help stave off conflict in a region that has suffered terribly."[23]
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In 1999 Stanton founded Genocide Watch,[11] a non-governmental organization campaigning against genocide based inWashington, D.C.[24][25] Genocide Watch is the chair and coordinator of the Alliance Against Genocide, which includes 125 organizations in 31 countries, including theMinority Rights Group, theInternational Crisis Group, theAegis Trust, andSurvival International.[26] Its board of advisers includes former commander ofUnited Nations peacekeeping forces in RwandaRoméo Dallaire, formerNuremberg ProsecutorBenjamin Ferencz, formerUS Ambassador to the United Nations and formerAdministrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)Samantha Power,[27][28] and former UN Special Advisers for the Prevention of GenocideAdama Dieng and Alice Nderitu.
In 2010, Genocide Watch was the first[29] organization to assert that the 1980sGukurahundi massacres inZimbabwe met the definition of genocide, calling for the prosecution of Zimbabwean leaders including presidentRobert Mugabe.[30][31][32] Genocide Watch has also indicated numerous times that the Armenians are at risk of genocide due toAzerbaijan's "unprovoked attack" on Armenia in 2022 and itsblockade and offensive of Artsakh (2022–2023).[33][34]
Stanton has formed alliances with dozens of human rights leaders, such asBaroness Kennedy and Ewelina Ochab from the Coalition for Genocide Response.[35] In 2020, Genocide Watch joined other human rights groups urging theU.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate the actions of the Chinese government regardingUyghurs and otherTurkicMuslimminorities in theXinjiang region, and demand that China end persecution of Uyghurs thatamount to acts of genocide.[36] In the case ofBosco Ntaganda within theInternational Criminal Court investigation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Genocide Watch submittedamicus curiae observations[37] along with theAntiquities Coalition andBlue Shield International, on the interpretation of attacks on cultural property in theRome Statute.[38]
Stanton has criticized the term "ethnic cleansing", calling it a term invented bySlobodan Milošević as a term used for the denial and cover-up of genocide, stating it whitewashes the crimes and impedes forceful action to stop genocide.[39] He also rejects the "only intent" doctrine that theInternational Court of Justice used inBosnia v Serbia andCroatia v Serbia to find that because Serbia's intent was "ethnic cleansing," Serbia's "sole" and "only" intent was not genocide, Serbia had not violated the Genocide Convention, writing:[40]
The ICJ's doctrine of "only intent" for genocide is so wrong that if you liken it to, for instance, intent in ordinary criminal law, it's like saying that if somebody picks up a gun, shoots and kills someone, they can't be charged with murder because they also had the intent to rob the person.
It's a fact that the intent of a state has to be even more complicated and more complex than the intention of an individual. No individual can possibly commit an act, almost any act, that only has one intention. So, this doctrine by the ICJ, I think, is fatally flawed. It would make it impossible to find that any state has violated the Genocide Convention.
The silent genocide has become overt...Genocide Watch considers Azerbaijan to be at Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 5: Organization, Stage 7: Preparation, Stage 8: Persecution, and Stage 9: Extermination.
Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Warning due to Azerbaijan's unprovoked military attacks on Armenia and on the unrecognized Armenian Republic of Artsakh.
