Prof. Harry Reicher discussed “What Will It Take for the World To Learn: From the Holocaust to Darfur and President Ahmadinejad” at the Council of Holocaust Educators Conference.
Photo courtesy Harry Reicher
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January 20, 2009
The ongoing genocides in Darfur and other regions of Africa, coupled with anti-Semitic rhetoric from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, represent dismal chapters in the history of international human rights, according to an expert in international law and Holocaust studies.
Harry Reicher — a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia and a scholar-in-residence in the field of Holocaust law and international human rights at Touro Law School on Long Island — was the keynote speaker at the sixth annual Council of Holocaust Educators Conference. Held Dec. 5 at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, the conference was sponsored by the Holocaust, Genocide, & Human Rights Education Center at Brookdale and the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education.
“The human rights movement offered a great deal of hope and promise after the Holocaust, but in some ways, it has veered off the right path,” Reicher told NJ Jewish News after the conference. “It was horrifying to see the president of Iran spewing out vile anti-Semitic rhetoric at the United Nations, especially on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the adoption by the UN of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” (Both were adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948.)
The declaration and the convention were direct responses to the Holocaust, which revealed the ultimate depths to which society can sink without systems of protection, recognition, and enforcement of human rights, Reicher said.
“The Holocaust was a catalyst for the human rights movement,” he said. “Now, Iran’s president stands in the UN and advocates for the destruction of Israel. It’s sadly ironic.”
Reicher, who lives in Brooklyn, was born in Prague and raised in Australia. He is the author of Holocaust Law: Materials and Commentary and has written and edited numerous academic papers and articles on Holocaust studies and the law.
Among other affiliations, Reicher was director of international affairs and representative to the UN for Agudath Israel World Organization from 1995 to 2004 and was appointed to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council in 2004. He has lectured throughout the world.
‘Soul-searching needed’
The postwar human rights movement “touched all bases” to prevent a repetition of the Holocaust, said Reicher.
“The movement maintains that every person is born with dignity and worth,” he said. “This concept smashes through the core of Nazi ideology, which believed human rights were predicated on race and that racial ‘vermin’ had to be exterminated.”
The “right” to annihilate human beings based on their group was met head-on by the 1948 convention, which achieved three central objectives, Reicher said: It defined genocide as acts committed with the intention of eliminating a group as defined by race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality; confirmed that genocide is a crime under international law; and obligated countries to prevent genocide and bring the perpetrators to justice.
However, responses of international law to the Holocaust have now been turned against the victims, he added.
“Israel is regularly pilloried as a perpetrator not only of genocide, but also of crimes against humanity,” said Reicher. “The infamous Durban conference on racism in 2001 degenerated into a hate-fest directed at Israel. Rabid anti-Semitism, under the guise of anti-Zionism, regularly comes out of the Human Rights Council. There is a crying need for the UN to do some serious soul-searching.
“Unfortunately, the UN Security Council has demonstrated a great deal of impotence when it comes to enforcing the convention’s objectives,” he continued. “Coming up with a solution to this impotence is what it will take for the world to learn the lessons of the Holocaust.”
What is needed is for parties to the convention to summon up the moral courage to confront the issue, he said.
“They must put their actions where their expressed intentions are, demonstrating that when the convention imposes an obligation to prevent genocide, it really means what it says,” said Reicher. “As the most egregious crime in the international legal lexicon, no less is called for.”
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