“Genocide is Fascism in Action”: Aron Trainin and Soviet Portrayals of Genocide

ABSTRACT

This article examines the Soviet legal scholar Aron Trainin’s evolving writings on international law. Initially, Trainin formulated aspects of his concept of “crimes against peace” as a sort of Soviet alternative to Raphael Lemkin’s crimes of barbarity and vandalism. Crimes against peace both converged with the larger international movement to outlaw aggressive war, provided a Soviet alternative to proposed international crimes that they believed would threaten Soviet sovereignty, and provided a Soviet response to Lemkin’s proposals to outlaw mass killings. During World War II, Trainin articulated the Nazi extermination of the Jews as “crimes against peaceful civilians,” linking the Nazi atrocities to his concept of crimes against peace. Trainin’s concept of “crimes against peaceful civilians” encompassed the atrocities of the Holocaust while also asserting that the Soviet experience of the war – most notably Soviet sacrifice and suffering – meant that the Soviets should determine how international criminal law punished the war’s perpetrators. After World War II, when it became clear that genocide, rather than “crimes against peace” or “crimes against peaceful civilians,” was becoming the primary concept in international law to understand mass killings, Trainin portrayed the concept of genocide according to the perspective of Soviet propaganda, opposing an international criminal court for genocide, supporting the concept of cultural genocide, and portraying genocide as an inevitable outcome of capitalism. At the same time, Trainin and the Soviets never abandoned his concept of “crimes against peace,” portraying capitalism as inherently bound up with war and genocide. Trainin was the most significant genocide scholar in the Soviet Union, and his work exemplifies both the ways in which Soviet approaches to international law converged with other approaches, and the ways in which the Soviet Union diverged from non-Soviet international law.     

'Le Pre´sident des Terres Australes': Charles de Brosses and the French Enlightenment Beginnings of Oceanic Anthropology

In 1756, Charles de Brosses, President of the Burgundy parliament, published his Histoire des navigations aux terres australes , the first systematic summary of voyaging narratives by European navigators in the Antipodes. While historians of Pacific exploration have long recognised the significance of this text, its reflections on the human inhabitants of the South Seas appear never to have attracted critical attention. The present essay focuses on de Brosses's division of the main part of this 'fifth part of the globe' into regions he named 'Australasia' and 'Polynesia', and his speculations on the racial derivation and societal types of their native populations. It will be shown that these ideas had a major impact on how subsequent writers, especially Bougainville and J.R. Forster, understood the indigenous peoples of the Pacific. Similarly, Histoire des navigations aux terres australes will be considered in relation to de Brosses's wider ethnological corpus, and to a general flowering of anthropological thought in Enlightenment France.     

The Nanjing Massacre as recorded in American sources

ABSTRACT

During the Nanjing Massacre, American figures who remained in Nanjing, or who took an interest in Nanjing’s plight despite not being present in the city, produced copious reports, observations, records, and analyses with respect to the events that unfolded, forming highly unique third-party sources on the history of the Nanjing Massacre, and disseminated them across China, Europe, and the United States. The American sources recorded the facts of the massacres, rape, looting, arson, narcotics trafficking, implementation of a “comfort women” system, and other atrocities committed by the Japanese Army, and revealed the actions taken by Japan to conceal its war crimes; their evidentiary value was demonstrated during the war crimes trials in Tokyo and Nanjing. The documents were produced during the course of the Americans’ efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Chinese soldiers and civilians, but at the same time, they also reflect these figures’ consideration for American interests in China.     

The bamboo raft as a key to the introduction of the sweet potato in prehistoric Polynesia

The idea that American Indians played no part in Polynesian prehistory originated with J.R. Forster, a companion of Cook on his second voyage. Forster made a comparative study of five Polynesian languages, using a basic list of 40 words that included 'sweet potato'. He concluded that although there were many similarities between those languages and the languages of Southeast Asia, 'no distant or accidental similarity' existed between the Polynesian and American languages. Moreover, the 'wretchedness and small size' of American sailing craft proved 'incontestably' that the Pacific Islanders had not originated in the Americas. The premises for Forster's claims have long been proved to be wrong. Yet many scholars still accept his main conclusion. This article contraverts that view. It argues that voyagers from Mindanao crossed the Pacific to Ecuador in about 200 BC on a bamboo raft and that this became the prototype of the balsa rafts of Ecuador and Peru of early Spanish times. Such rafts made prehistoric voyages to Mexico, south-central Chile, and the Galapagos Islands. Easter Island's first settlers, it is argued, were drifted there in a balsa raft. A new claim that Polynesians from Easter Island sailed to South America and returned with the sweet potato and bottle gourd is also discussed.     

Guerrilla healthcare innovation: creative resilience in Zimbabwe’s chimurenga, 1971–1980

Abstract

Drawing from the last five years of chimurenga, Zimbabwe’s war of self-liberation from the early 1960s to 1980s, this paper shows that the most important aspect of technology and innovation in Africa is not the technology and innovation itself, but the African spirit of creative resilience born of the specificities of struggles its people have endured. By creative resilience is meant a phenomenon whereby, even where death is the outcome, and where the situation is insurmountable, people do not just surrender to fate, but die fighting. As a site of creative resilience, chimurenga is the ultimate site of creative labor and a vast laboratory, not simply a destination for incoming technologies, or a 'user' space but generative of its own insurgent and counter-insurgent innovations. Focusing on the communal war effort involving guerrillas and ordinary Africans in the rear bases of Mozambique and Zambia and on the front inside Zimbabwe, the paper makes its argument through a focus on healthcare innovation.     

Politics by other means? The virtual trials of the Khmer Rouge tribunal

This article argues that more emphasis should be placed on the political aspects of international tribunals, which are often in the business of reshaping politics as well as simply administering justice. By examining the hybrid Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), popularly known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, the article develops arguments previously advanced by Victor Peskin in respect of Rwanda and the former Yuogoslavia. Peskin has suggested that courtroom war crimes trials are paralleled by ‘virtual trials’, in which international and domestic political actors struggle for power and control over the form and outcome of proceedings. He terms these virtual trials ‘trials of cooperation’, in which governments of states where war crimes have been committed seek variously to help or hinder legal proceedings to address those crimes. Such virtual trials now loom extremely large in the Cambodian case; the Hun Sen government, while exploiting the ECCC to deflect domestic and international attention from the endemic corruption and growing authoritarianism over which it presides, has sought tightly to limit the Tribunal's room for manoeuvre. One trial has been completed, another is about to start, and the international investigators and prosecutors are planning a couple more—but Prime Minister Hun Sen has personally declared his opposition to any further cases going ahead. If the ECCC succeeds in trying only five defendants from the murderous 1975–79 Khmer Rouge regime, justice will not have been done; and wider questions will emerge about the future viability of hybrid tribunals. The Cambodian case demonstrates that where war crimes tribunals are concerned, backroom ‘virtual trials’ need as much academic, policy and media attention as the actual courtroom trials of key defendants.     

The Art of Contested Histories: In Pursuit of Venus [Infected] and the Pacific Legacy

ABSTRACT

European artists of the eighteenth century framed an exotic textual and visual narrative of the Pacific, drawing largely on knowledge gained from exploratory journeys of the 1760s and 1770s. Visual representations of the Pacific became socially fashionable and commercially successful. The French wallpaper manufacturer, Dufour, captured this commercial potential in a dramatic, panoramic wallpaper that told stories of European encounters with Pacific peoples: Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique (1804). Yet it was selective, defining the Pacific by moments of contact with Cook and other explorers. Lisa Reihana's In Pursuit of Venus [Infected] (2015–17) dramatically interrogates the eighteenth-century narrative of the Pacific, responding to Dufour's wallpaper in a complex, panoramic work. By attending to ways in which the factual and speculative are brought together in Enlightenment artefacts and Reihana's restaging of them, we explore how art might be put to use in the service of historical interpretation.     

The Legacy of Bernard Narokobi and the Melanesian Way

ABSTRACT

This special issue on the life and legacy of Bernard Narokobi documents and contextualizes Narokobi's life and thought. A central figure in Papua New Guinea's transition from Australian territory to independent nation, Narokobi was a jurist, philosopher, and poet who is best remembered for making ‘the Melanesian Way’ an important theme – if not the guiding ideological principle – in the discourse of independence in Papua New Guinea. In looking closely at Narokobi's biography, the collection also contributes to a growing body of work on political life writing in the Pacific. The collection speaks to Narokobi's role as a theorist of Oceanic modernity more broadly, one who deserves a place alongside two other important philosophers of Pacific independence, Epeli Hau‘ofa and Jean-Marie Tjibaou, as one of the main visionaries of Pacific decolonization and Oceanic modernity of the post-war period.     

'The Scars of Ravensbruck': Medical Experiments and British War Crimes Policy, 1945-1950

Although the fiftieth anniversary of the Nazi Doctors' Trialin 1946 and 1947 sparked significant debate about medical researchethics and the origins of the Nuremberg Code, historians haveso far paid little, if any, attention to Allied war crimes policyon the investigation of German medical atrocities, of whichthe Ravensbrück trials formed part. British war crimespolicy, in particular, was concerned with medical war crimescommitted by German scientists at the Ravensbrück concentrationcamp. Much of the evidence against some key defendants at theDoctors' Trial was compiled by British experts and made availableto the US prosecution. Although the British investigated thisgroup, some of the defendants were later extradited and triedwith the Nuremberg doctors. To date, little has been writtenabout the broader political and legal context of the first Ravensbrücktrial, its origin, and overall place in the context of Allieddenazification policy. The article investigates the genesisof the Ravensbrück trial and the extensive investigationsand discussions that preceded its opening. It looks at how membersof the German public perceived the Ravensbrück trial, andcontextualizes the British response to criticism levelled againstit at the dawn of the Cold War. It aims, in part, to reconstructthe wider historical context of postwar British policy on medicalwar crimes, and suggests that British war crimes investigationsconducted in preparation for the Ravensbrück trials formedone of the most substantial bodies of legal testimony and scientificexpertise on human rights violations in experimental human researchbefore the establishment of the Nazi Doctors' Trial. The articlealso acknowledges Britain's contribution to the war crimes programme,and emphasises that the memory of the first Ravensbrücktrial has largely been overshadowed by the publicity surroundingthe Nuremberg trials.     

Now More than Ever: Terrorism,Asymmetric Warfare,and the Just War Tradition

Abstract

For more than fifteen hundred years, the just war tradition has provided guidance about when wars should and should not be fought. It has also incorporated standards for how wars should be fought. The tradition rejects the claim that all use of force is evil, suggesting instead that in some circumstances the failure to use force is wrong. War is never desirable, but sometimes it is both right and necessary. The just war tradition helps us understand when this is true. The tradition developed to help control conventional warfare, but it is no less applicable to the terrorism and asymmetrical warfare prevalent in contemporary conflicts. In a world where American military power is unmatched, any opponent's best option is some form of asymmetric warfare. Such warfare is frustrating to conventional forces and tempts them to respond with an "all's fair in war" approach that is both morally wrong and militarily counterproductive. Neither pacifism nor "realism" deals adequately with the challenges of twenty-first century warfare. Only the just war tradition provides clear guidance about when and how it is right to go to war and places this in the context of establishing a peace based on justice and equity.     

The Impacts of Indonesia's Civil War and the US–Soviet Tug of War over Indonesia on Australia's Diplomacy Towards West New Guinea

From 1958 onwards, the Amsterdam–Jakarta dispute on the determination of sovereignty over the western half of New Guinea began to be affected by the developments of Indonesia's civil war and the tug of war between the US and the Soviet Union over Indonesia. This paper explains how this influenced Australia's WNG diplomacy.

It argues that the major impact of Indonesia's internal war and of the US–Russian tug of war was that they destroyed Australia's assumption that the Dutch would maintain its presence in the Pacific permanently. The second principal impact was that Indonesia's internal war and the Washington–Moscow tug of war urged Canberra to set another new objective in relation to the WNG dispute, and produced a new policy for the achievement of this objective. With the outbreak of an Indonesian–Dutch war over Netherlands New Guinea becoming a real possibility, Australia set the avoidance of the war and the prevention of Indonesia falling into the communist orbit as another new objective. In order to keep a war from occurring in the Southwest Pacific, Canberra developed a policy of appeasing Jakarta.     

The Coup Nobody Noticed:

The history of a man from Malaita in Solomon Islands, who was kidnapped for the labour trade in 1871 and returned home after about 30 years as a Christian evangelist, is recalled in oral history a century later. It was also documented by colonial sources of the time, and the contradictions between local and foreign versions of the history contribute some epistemological questions to the current debate on the dehegemonisation of Pacific Islands scholarship. It is suggested that Islanders have more to gain by reconciling local and colonial histories and epistemologies than by pursuing the distinction between 'insiders' and 'outsiders'.     

The Virtue Ethic Difference in the Just War Discourse of James Turner Johnson and Catholic Social Teaching

Abstract

In this article, I investigate how incorporating virtue ethics into the process of interpreting and responding to conflict re-shapes the understanding and application of just war theory. More specifically, I analyze James Turner Johnson's idea of just war and the implications of Thomistic virtue ethics. My argument in this article is that Johnson's rule-based idea of just war theory lacks the more integrated virtue ethic, which we find in Thomas and in the re-appropriation of Thomistic virtue ethics in contemporary Catholic Social Teaching's discourse on just war. This contributes to Johnson's idea of just war being inconsistent with the direction of contemporary Catholic Social Teaching on just war theory, particularly regarding the presumption against war. His lack of a virtue ethic also contributes to an inadequate understanding, development, and application of basic just war criteria, particularly from a Catholic perspective.     

The Impact of the Franco-Prussian War on Veterans: The Company-Level Career Patterns of the French Army 1870–1895

Abstract

The German Army generally failed to capitalize on early developments in mechanization and armoured vehicles during the second half of the First World War. This article argues that, while the German military was certainly not technophobic nor resistant to change, the developments in 'machine warfare' were fundamentally inimical to the dominant cultural assumptions held by German officers concerning the nature of war, and that this goes a long way in explaining the decision not to mass-produce armoured vehicles.     

La Parité en débat au-delà de Versailles

Referring mainly to texts published after the passage of the constitutional bill on gender parity in politics, this article asks theoretical questions about how French intellectuals understand the issue of 'women and politics'. It raises questions about 'differentialism' and 'discrimination', two notions that keep recurring in critiques of parity. By continuously emphasising the differentialism of parity advocates, 'republican feminists' may end up reinforcing and popularising this notion. Furthermore, parity critics' constant references to 'discrimination' may (intentionally or not) encourage the view that women are just another 'minority'. Do these two mutally reinforcing developments point to a 'socialisation of politics'? Is such a trend unavoidable when thinking about the links between 'women' and 'politics'?     

Albert Wendt and the Problem of History

Poet and fiction writer Albert Wendt has taken on the task of correcting colonialist representations of the Pacific from an insider perspective. This involves him in questions of historical record and modes of recording history. The role of memory becomes central to the artist transposing oral traditions into written forms. Trained as an historian, Wendt progressively blurs the boundaries between imaginative and factual, personal and public re/constructions, aware of the illusions of both nationalistic nostalgia for lost perfection and colonialist 'objective' encyclopaedism. History both liberates and traps; in the poem 'Inside Us the Dead' and novels Pouliuli and Black Rainbow , Wendt looks for a postcolonial dynamic between postmodern deconstruction and representational texts that can be seen in terms of de Certeau's ideas of tactics and strategies.     

The south pacific ‘experiment’: Reflections on the origins of regional identity

Abstract

When colonial administrators decided to encourage a sense of unity among the members of the emergent élite of their Pacific Island territories in the late 1940s, they regarded their project as novel. Rather than a sense of tapping a pre‐existing affinity, it seemed that what was being attempted was social engineering on a grand scale. The first South Pacific Conference of Pacific Island representatives held at Nasinu, Fiji, in April‐May 1950, was seen by European officials and observers as an ‘experiment’.

The attempt to forge a sense of regional unity was seen as pushing against the perceived gulf between Melanesian and Polynesian cultures and as expecting too much in the way of conference skills from ‘undeveloped’ societies. But the ‘experiment’ was considered necessary for other important post‐war goals. Although the Nasinu conference is to be seen broadly as an experiment in the promotion of trusteeship, or ‘native welfare’, principles, there was by no means agreement on its ultimate purposes. For some it offered the best (if risky) chance of minimising United Nations interference in the continuation of colonial control, for others a way of ensuring the demise of empire by serving the needs of self‐determination. Finally, the promotion of a sense of region among Pacific Islanders was seen by some as part of an experiment in keeping the region from Communist influence.     

Excavating Under Gunfire: Archaeologists in the Aegean During the First World War

Abstract

The Gallipoli campaign in 1915 revealed remains of the cemeteries of the Greek settlement of Elaious. French troops from the Corps expéditionnaire d'Orient were assigned to investigate the site, often under Turkish gunfire. This work was supervised by former students of the École française d'Athènes. Detailed plans were made, the finds catalogued, and a published report issued. During the subsequent campaign in Macedonia, the French team made a detailed study of the archaeological remains and objects discovered in the French sector. Ernest Gardner, the former director of the British School at Athens, had been posted to Salonica as a member of the Eastern Mediterranean Special Intelligence Bureau (EMSIB). He studied the finds from the British sector and created a museum for the finds in Salonica. Some other archaeological work continued in Greece during the war years, though not close to the front. Such dedicated archaeological work in a battlefield situation was the precursor to more specialized units that developed during the Second World War.     

Henry Longueville Mansel and the origins of agnosticism

Abstract

The central theme of John Locke's Of the Conduct of the Understanding is human error. The Conduct was conceived as an additional chapter to An Essay concerning Understanding, but it was never finished and published posthumously in 1706 as a separate work. Modern authors have regarded the Conduct as an educational treatise. Indeed, the analysis in this work of the nature and causes of error and the ways to prevent and remedy error gives rise to numerous educational reflections. However, the aim of the present article is to show that these views should be understood within the specific epistemological context of a two-stage analysis of ideas, the first stage consisting of individual ideas that should all be clear and distinct, and the second stage consisting of reasonings based on combinations of these ideas. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.     

Rebellion and Mutiny in the Mariana Islands, 1680–1690

ABSTRACT

The fledgling Spanish colony in the Marianas was rocked by seven episodes of mutiny in the 1680s, culminating in the successful takeover of the island of Guam in 1688 by a group of mutineers led by a convict captain. In the context of ongoing campaigns of Indigenous resistance to Spanish colonisation, the actions of these mutinous soldiers placed the project of empire-building in the Marianas in serious peril. The events surrounding these mutinies have often been underplayed within a historiography that focuses on the violent nature of the Spanish presence in the Marianas. Nevertheless the soldiers’ mutinies of the 1680s add another perspective to this turbulent history. The experience of mutiny raises considerable questions about the nature of loyalty among ordinary soldiers to the project of empire-building in the Pacific. It demonstrates that Spanish soldiers – and often their Filipino counterparts – had the capacity to destabilise the imperial project from within.