


































Money and Power over Concern for Humanity:


 

CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 33-62) 
 

Money and Power over Concern for Humanity: 
Delaying Justice for Special Interests in the Armenian Genocide Case 

 
 

Angelica Light 
Department of Sociology 

California State University, Los Angeles 
 
 

In the case of the Armenian Genocide, action and inaction and the 
weighing of costs and benefits led to the massive destruction of Armenians 
during WWI. The Turkish government’s racial discrimination against the 
Armenians drove them to politically and violently eradicate the Armenians 
within the Ottoman Empire. The benefit for the Turks from having 
separatist policies was establishing a pure Turkish state. The costs to 
achieve this goal were forcible relocation or death, whichever was most 
efficient in prompting the Turkish government’s desired outcome. The 
benefit for outside nations from inaction was reserving political, financial 
and military assets as opposed to the burden of intruding in external 
affairs. However, the costs of inaction had a double-sided effect: hundreds 
of thousands of Armenians lost their lives and culture while outside nations 
lost their integrity.  Other nations are stigmatized with shame just as the 
Turkish masterminds behind the Armenian Genocide are vilified, for the 
lack of prevention is equally offensive as committing the crime. 
Furthermore, not addressing the Armenian Genocide, specifically, 
delaying reparations and punishment, perpetuates the guilt of the Turkish 
officials who authorized and conducted the genocide. It also perpetuates 
the embarrassment of other nations who did not get involved to prevent or 
stop it and the hurt that engulfs the Armenians as they mourn the demise of 
their heritage and are denied any sense of justice.  

 
 

1In 1915, an estimated one and a half 
million Armenians were killed under 
Turkish government orders. Since the 
genocide, Armenia and other nations 

                                                           
Angelica Light is an undergraduate student in the 
Department of Sociology. Her paper was 
originally submitted to SOC. 496 Law and 
Society Honors Thesis, taught by Dr. Elaine 
Draper in Winter 2011. 

have used the political arena to not only 
remedy genocidal grievances but also to 
avoid them. Because the Turkish 
government has not officially 
acknowledged that what befell the 
Armenians in 1915 was genocide, no 
reparations or condolences have been 
given to the Armenian people. The 
purpose of this paper is to present and 
analyze from a sociological perspective 
the history and significance of the 



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CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 33-62) 

Turko-Armenian conflict that manifested 
into genocide. First, I will describe the 
historical background of this conflict. 
Then, I will examine how the flexible 
nature of the law can lead to many 
perversions that allow human violations 
to occur legally and how rectifying 
wrongdoing can be delayed by lack of 
action and by inaction. Finally, I will 
discuss why nations and the international 
community delay enforcing the laws due 
to the weighing of the costs and benefits, 
which often results in special interests 
prevailing over justice for humanity.  
 
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND  

 
Birth of a Nation Despite the Odds 

The Armenians occupied a “strategic 
crossroads” in Eastern Anatolia and the 
Caucasus as early as the sixth century 
B.C. (Toriguian1973:17). As a result of 
their ideal geographical position, they 
endured two thousand years of “frequent 
intervals of foreign domination and 
oppression,…successive waves of 
foreign invasions” and falling in and out 
of national independence 
(Toriguian1973:17). The last Armenian 
Kingdom fell in 1375, dividing Armenia 
into 2 regions: Russian Armenia and 
Turkish Armenia, the larger region being 
the latter. Russian Armenians lived a 
tolerable existence under Russian rule 
while Turkish Armenians endured the 
ups and downs of unfulfilled guarantees 
of rights, liberties and reforms promised 
by the Ottoman Empire. However, the 
Armenian people were still able to 
establish a national identity by adopting 
Christianity as their state religion, 
developing their own alphabet and 
creating a culture enriched by language, 
literature and art (Alexander 1991:30).  

Despite being relegated as second-
class citizens, the Ottoman Empire 
allowed cultural autonomy for the 
Armenians. However, as the Empire 
began to decline in the nineteenth 
century, coexistence among diversity 
became exceedingly difficult. A wave of 
Turkish refugees from Russia and the 
Balkans as well as Kurds and 
Circassians created an imbalanced 
population that provoked competition for 
agricultural lands (Dadrian 2006:29). 
Since the Armenians were already 
socioeconomically pushed into farming 
and peasantry, the agrarian sector with 
its new demographics presented the 
Armenians with an aggressive economic 
rivalry for survival.  

 
The Power Struggles of Conflict Theory: 
Creating the Enemy 

From a sociological perspective, the 
targeting of the Armenians exemplifies 
“the major dimensions of conflict 
[which] are along the structural divisions 
or systems of stratification that form the 
basis of the society: race or ethnicity, 
class and gender” (Iadicola and Shupe 
2003:10). The multi-ethnic Ottoman 
Empire faced “conflicting values, 
interests and cultural orientations” that 
created a divide “within the systems of 
stratification” (Iadicola and Shupe 
2003:10). The Turkish government used 
(1) race or ethnicity, (2) class and (3) 
gender to create a greater division 
between Turks and Armenians.  

First, the Turkish government’s 
justification to marginalize the 
Armenians was subjugation by race or 
ethnicity. Given that religion is a 
significant dimension of one’s ethnic 
background, the Turks maintained that 
the Armenians being of an opposing 



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religion was reason enough to segregate 
and suppress the Armenians. To 
legitimize their position, the Turks used 
religion as a basis to define the character 
of an individual as good or bad.  Since 
the Turks adopted Islam and the 
Armenians Christianity, Muslim Turks 
were deemed morally good and 
Christian Armenians morally bad 
(Hovannissian 1998:24). Consequently, 
religious differences distinguished the 
two races, classifying Muslim Turks as 
superior and Christian Armenians as 
inferior. Provided that the Turkish 
government was able to convince their 
Turkish constituents that religion was a 
chosen lifestyle that reflected the quality 
of one’s temperament, the superior and 
inferior distinction based on religion 
made unequal treatment acceptable. This 
rationale to marginalize the Armenians 
provoked neighbors to turn against each 
other.  

The second structural division that 
the Turkish government used was social 
class. They emphasized racial and ethnic 
differences between the Turks and 
Armenians to justify imposing racially 
targeted limitations on the Armenians to 
relegate them to second-class status in 
the Ottoman Empire. For example, 
Armenians were denied access to the 
press and they did not have the right to 
bear arms, receive an education, testify 
in court or become officers in the army. 
Some provinces also prohibited 
Armenians from speaking their own 
language or practicing their own 
religion. Furthermore, Armenians were 
burdened by a special “system of 
taxation” that was not only greater than 
their capacity to pay but also more than 
what Turkish citizens were required to 
pay (Alexander 1991:33).  

Consequently, the Armenians were 
subjected to a second-class citizenship, 
which surrendered them to what Vahakn 
Dadrian (2006:134) in Warrant for 
Genocide, calls a “structural 
blockage.” Dadrian uses this term to 
describe how the divisions between 
classes are perpetuated by the 
availability and allocation of resources 
to each class. In other words, individuals 
of certain classes are directed to occupy 
certain trades while they are blocked 
from entering other trades and 
professions. As a result, lower class 
individuals, those with limited resources 
compared with those with abundant 
resources, known as the upper class, are 
confined to their social status because 
they lack the means and opportunities 
for upward social mobility. Since the 
distribution of resources is controlled by 
those who have the greatest access to 
resources, those in power tend to hoard 
plentiful resources and are reluctant to 
share any leftovers, thus safeguarding 
the assets of the upper class and 
preventing lower class individuals from 
intruding.  

Dadrian’s concept of structural 
blockage can be applied to the Armenian 
case with a twist of irony. Since social 
forces handicapped the Armenians by 
restricting them to manual work like 
farming, the Armenian workforce was 
essential to maintaining society, for they 
provided a substantial portion of the 
food supply in the Ottoman Empire 
(Freedman 2009: 34). Additionally, 
unlike the Turks, Armenians were open 
to Westernization and thus sought 
businesses in modernization. Armenians 
brought “technical innovations such as 
steam engines, mechanical weaving 
machines and iron and steel ovens” from 



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CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 33-62) 

the West and into the lives of Ottomans 
(Karagueuzian 2006:2). However, their 
surprising success in trade and business 
backfired (Karagueuzian 2006:3).Slight 
prosperity over some Turkish Muslims 
aided the Turkish government’s 
endorsement of using the Armenian 
Christians as a scapegoat to alleviate 
blame for the Empire’s economic demise 
(Hovanissian 1998:39).  

Even though the Armenians 
contributed to modernizing Turkey, the 
empire was still behind in technological 
advancements, causing the economy and 
military to deteriorate (Dadrian 
2006:148). Since the Turks’ declining 
economy looked inadequate compared 
with Armenians’ economic niches, 
Turkish officials exaggerated the fact 
that the Armenians were ethnically 
different from the Turks so that they 
could brand the Armenians as the reason 
for Empire’s economic misery (Dadrian 
2006:125). For that reason, the 
Armenians were made outcasts to detract 
attention from the government’s 
shortcomings.  

Making matters even worse for the 
waning empire was “an Armenian 
political enlightenment” that pressured 
Turkish officials to address any 
inequities the Armenian people endured 
(Alexander 1991:32). Western ideas of 
“freedom and independence” penetrated 
those exploited under the Ottoman 
Empire, putting the government in the 
spotlight to produce solutions. Thus, 
gender became the third structural 
division for the Turkish officials to 
exploit. Intellectual and prominent men 
of the Armenian community posed a 
threat to the Turkish government. 
Democratic ideologies inspired public 
figures of the Armenian community to 

encourage fellow Armenians to take a 
stand against the Turkish government. 
Since religion was the basis on which 
Armenians shaped their identity and kept 
their community intact, clergymen were 
immediately targeted.  

Clergymen “raised their voices 
against the persistence in the provinces 
of governmental misrule that was 
threatening to erode the rural 
infrastructure of the Armenian Church” 
(Dadrian 2006:41). In 1870, leaders of 
the Armenian Church constructed a 
“Memorandum of Grievances,” detailing 
fundamental issues that extended beyond 
the welfare of their Church. Their 
concerns included forced religious 
conversions, expropriations of farming 
properties, tax abuses, corrupted 
government officials and “the 
inadmissibility of Armenian testimony in 
court” (Dadrian 2006:40). However, the 
Turkish government found all reports, 
even after revision and clarification, to 
be too “non-specific and vague” to 
justify action (Dadrian 2006:41). To 
further escape the acknowledgement of 
these complaints, the Turkish 
government purposely changed the 
jurisdiction of who received the reports. 
Originally the grievances were heard by 
the Foreign Ministry whose affairs were 
overseen by the Entente Powers: Britain, 
France and Russia, outsiders who were 
considered impartial to the racial conflict 
that swept over the Ottoman Empire 
(Dadrian 2006:41). However, a switch of 
jurisdiction left the Ministry of Religion 
and Justice in charge, “whose reliance 
on the dictates of Islam and Sacred 
Islamic Law,” presented a bias favorable 
to the Turks (Dadrian 2006:41). Since 
the Turkish government complicated the 
protocol of political reform by switching 



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jurisdictions, the Armenians were 
handicapped once again. In this 
example, the Turks used their authority 
to alter the channels of law that could 
have potentially brought about change so 
that they could prevent the Armenians’ 
desired change from ever happening.  

 
Turkish Supremacy and Perpetuated 
Violence 

The previous section revealed how 
the Armenians were faced against 
violence that was intrinsic to their race 
in the multi-ethnic empire dominated by 
the Turks. Peter Iadicola and Anson 
Shupe (Iadicola and Shupe 2003:23) in 
Violence, Inequality, and Human 
Freedom, define violence as “any action 
or structural arrangement that results in 
physical or nonphysical harm to one or 
more persons.” The Armenian case can 
be examined through two types of 
violence: structural and institutional 
violence. “Structural violence” refers to 
the way society is systematically ordered 
to maintain status quo (Iadicola and 
Shupe 2003:31). The infringement of 
rights of the Armenians due to their 
second-class citizenship status 
exemplifies structural violence. This 
structural arrangement resulted in 
harmful outcomes for the Armenians 
physically and psychologically. For 
example, since Armenians were second-
class citizens, they were denied due-
process and could be jailed or beaten 
without justifiable cause (Alexander 
1991:98). They also could not live with 
any sense of acceptance for they were 
demoralized for having a different faith. 
The Turks practiced structural violence 
to maintain and extend “the hierarchical 
ordering” of people to construct built in 
inequality (Iadicola and Shupe 2003:31).  

“Institutional violence” is violence 
that results from institutions seeking and 
achieving institutional objectives 
(Iadicola and Shupe 2003:28).  Three 
important institutions that Iadicola and 
Shupe identify that are significant to the 
study of violence in the context of 
sociology are religion, the economy and 
politics. “Religion” gave rise to 
victimization because competing faiths 
made it easy for Turkish officials to 
dehumanize the Armenians. Religious 
violence took the forms of forced 
religious conversions and prohibition of 
Christianity (Alexander 1991:7). The 
Armenians experienced “economic” 
violence by being restricted from certain 
professions with disproportionate pay 
and special taxes (Alexander 1991:33). 
In fact, “two-thirds of the income of the 
Armenians was collected as taxes, levied 
at three times the amount charged to 
non-Armenians” (Karagueuzian 2006:3). 
“Political” violence was manifested in 
the state-directed targeting of the 
Armenians (Freedman 2009:18).  The 
policies that legalized special taxation 
based on race exemplify outright 
targeting.  

However, the most critical example 
of political violence was the political 
tone that swept throughout the Ottoman 
Empire: Pan-Turanianism. This ideology 
promoted a “Turkish fanaticism” which 
meant “racial uniformity,” a Turkish 
one, which provided the framework for 
the suppression of the Armenians in the 
Ottoman Empire (Alexander 1991:98). 
The Turkish government used this 
ethnocentric mentality and propaganda 
to rally its Turkish constituents against 
the Armenians while using the 
glorification of their ethnicity as a 
justification to do so. What made this 



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ethnocentric ideology so dangerous was 
that it was accompanied by authority; in 
other words, the romanticized pure 
Turkish nation was endorsed by the 
government, which meant that any 
strategy to achieve this goal could be 
infiltrated in every system of society. 
This political strategy was so effective 
that it would reappear in World War II in 
the form of the Germans who glorified 
Nazism (Alexander 1991:98).  

In the case of the Armenians, the 
aggressive force behind Pan-
Turanianism was the politically violent 
and radical group called the Young 
Turks who assumed power in 1908 
(Alexander 1991:35). The Young Turks 
“changed the nature of the antagonism 
by projecting an even more adversary 
and threatening character onto the 
Armenians” living under the Ottoman 
Empire (Gellately and Kiernan 2003: 
207). They proposed that Turkish 
nationalism “offered the prospect of a 
homogeneous new civilization,” that 
would lead to “a glorious and powerful 
future” (Hovannissian 1998:40).  
However, “the Christian Armenians 
represented the single largest obstacle 
within Turkey to racial uniformity” 
(Alexander 1991: 98).  

The presence of the Armenians was 
definitely felt in their demands for 
closing the gap of disparity, 
complicating Turkey’s goal for a “pure” 
nation. It was strain enough on Turkish 
officials that the Armenians demanded 
“judicial and tax reforms” and “freedom 
of worship, education and press” but 
their insistence on “supervision of the 
Armenian provinces by a European High 
Commissioner” was even more 
burdensome (Alexander 1991: 96). 
Additionally, the fact that the Entente 

Powers, which was comprised of Britain, 
France and Russia, agreed with the 
Armenians that reform was necessary 
intensified the tension within the Empire 
even more. Between 1878 and 1914, the 
Entente Powers sought to establish an 
opportunity for the Armenians to 
“flourish in a climate of security under 
the supervision of the international 
community” (Alexander 1991:16). 
However, their good intentions were 
never cemented due to a lack of follow 
through and an inconsistency of 
responsibility. For example, the Treaty 
of San Stefano of 1878 “provided that a 
series of reforms would be carried out in 
Armenian areas under Russian 
guarantee” but then the Treaty of Berlin 
of 1878 ordained Great Britain to 
supervise reforms promised by the 
Turkish government (International 
League 1984:8). The lack of follow 
through and the changes of 
responsibility demonstrate that nations 
were not wholeheartedly committed to 
the needs of Armenians; for passing off 
responsibilities after failure to fulfill 
them suggests that the responsibilities 
were never a priority.   

Even though the Entente Powers 
urged that the Turkish government 
implement necessary reforms to 
accommodate the Armenians, they were 
never able to ensure implementation. In 
February 1914, the Entente Powers 
unsuccessfully attempted to appoint two 
inspectors to supervise reforms; 
unfortunately, the outbreak of World 
War I prevented the oversight 
(International League 1984:9). Instead, 
the Turkish government capitalized on 
the natural chaos of any war to commit 
genocidal acts in an attempt to 
accomplish their pure nation.  



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Under the Cover of War 

This tactic of using war as an alibi is 
what Jay Winter refers to as “under the 
cover of war,” meaning that the 
desensitization byproduct of war opens 
the door for inhumane acts; war does not 
totally conceal out-of-line deviance, but 
rather nations under war are withdrawn 
from humane intervention when they are 
occupied by their own affairs (Gellately 
and Kiernan 2003:189). For example, 
Winter asserts that “no one can deny that 
the Armenian genocide took place under 
the eyes of the German army and that the 
killers operated with impunity” 
(Gellately and Kiernan 2003:191). This 
example brings attention to political 
commitments that may have undermined 
moral judgment. In other words, as allies 
in the war, it would not have been a 
good strategy for Germany to interject in 
Turkey’s affairs when it could have 
jeopardized their prospects in the war. 
And in an ironic but unfortunate turn of 
events, Germany would later emulate 
Turkey’s quest for racial homogeneity 
under the cover of World War II driven 
by Nazism instead of Pan-Turanianism, 
emphasizing Judaism rather than 
Christianity and singling out Jews in 
place of Armenians in what is known as 
the Holocaust.  

The union between Turkey and 
Germany meant that Turkey was 
associated with the Central Powers. This 
was problematic for the Armenians for 
the Armenian population was divided: 
while two million resided in Turkey, one 
point seven million lived in Russia 
(International League 1984:10). Given 
that some Armenian soldiers living 
within Russian borders served alongside 
the Russians who were a part of the 

Allied Powers, Turkish authorities 
accused the Armenians of aiding the 
enemy and thus justified their initial 
claim that the Armenians were a threat 
to the security of the Ottoman Empire 
(Gellately and Kiernan 2003: 207).   

To prevent Armenians from 
revolting, Turkish officials began 
disarming Armenian soldiers and 
civilians in January 1915. On April 24th 
of the same year, 650 Armenian public 
personalities, writers, poets, lawyers, 
doctors, priests and politicians were 
imprisoned. The Young Turks 
authorized this operation to be carried 
out by a group called the “Special 
Organization,” which was comprised of 
criminals and convicts (International 
League 1984:10). Towns were notified 
of evacuation and Armenians had two 
days to gather their belongings. Men 
were gathered first to be eliminated in 
small groups and convoys loaded the 
women, children and the elderly. 
Families in isolated towns were 
slaughtered or burned in their own 
houses. Families living near the coast of 
the Black Sea and the Tigris River were 
loaded onto boats to be sunk and 
drowned. Eastern provinces were 
ransacked while Armenians were 
tortured and killed. Many Armenians did 
not even attempt to escape or seek aid or 
protection because they feared 
punishment by Turkish authorities 
(International League 1984:11). 
Deportations ensued to seemingly 
remove the Armenians out of the Turks’ 
way but became a successful mechanism 
for death as deportees died from 
starvation and dehydration en route to 
the deportation locations in the deserts of 
Syria (International League 1984:12). 
Although missionaries and ambassadors 



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reported the destruction of the Armenian 
people to the world and especially to the 
Entente Powers, Turkey justified their 
acts as a response to treason and 
terrorism on part of the Armenians 
during the war (International League 
1984:11). Without any follow up, 
investigation or intervention, the Turks 
managed to commit a crime that would 
be later named genocide and kill one and 
a half million Armenians (International 
League 1984:12). 

The historical background of the 
Turko-Armenian conflict is essential to 
understanding the conception of the 
Armenian Genocide. Due to a 
disharmonious environment rooted in 
racism and inequality, plus resentment 
over little wealth, genocide for the Turks 
would put an end to the Armenians, 
tainting the reputation of the Turks and 
complicating Turkish interests.  The 
tension between the Muslim Turks and 
Christian Armenians in this section 
demonstrates that the disparity of power 
within a society leads to exploitation and 
is achieved through the influence of 
authority. Powerful groups exploit 
vulnerable groups to advance or protect 
their interests and choose their exploited 
group or groups based on fundamental 
differences that may contradict with the 
interests of the powerful.  

In the Turko-Armenian case, 
differences between social groups within 
the multi-ethnic empire were 
emphasized in order to convince 
particular members of society that such 
differences were immoral and thus 
justify that certain governmental 
measures were pertinent to maintaining 
the empire. Hatred against the 
Armenians, or at least the notion that the 
Armenians were inferior to the Turks, 

infiltrated dimensions of society, 
specifically social institutions and the 
economy, that detrimentally affected the 
living conditions of the Armenians. 
What amplified this superior and inferior 
relationship was the campaign for Pan-
Turianism, an ideology that swept the 
empire in a totalizing fashion, making 
genocide more than a conceivable 
outcome, but rather an inevitable one. 

 
IDENTIFYING AND APPLYING 
THE LAW 
 
Channeling the Law 
     The law prescribes standards for its 
people and regulates people’s actions to 
measure up to those standards. The law 
is used to impose what a society thinks is 
appropriate to maintain order while 
satisfying needs for intuitive justice. The 
common conception of intuitive justice 
is that the law is part of a social contract 
that ensures fairness and if the law is 
broken, there is a consequence to 
compensate for breaching the contract. 
However, the law can only ideally 
reflect society’s attitudes and ideally 
change as society’s attitudes change. For 
example, Jim Crow laws legally 
segregated White Americans from Black 
Americans and other non-whites by 
creating “separate but equal” public 
facilities and institutions like restrooms, 
restaurants and schools. Although these 
laws seem to inherently contradict 
American ideologies of liberty and 
freedom, Jim Crow laws were a reality 
until the 1960s civil rights movement 
shifted what were considered to be 
acceptable practices to become 
unconstitutional. This mentality shift 
was made possible by special groups 
demonstrating civil unrest in the forms 



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of protesting and lobbying to 
communicate disapproval and encourage 
a means to correct certain conditions. 
Thus, the law is an instrument that 
dominant groups use to express what 
they find is tolerable or intolerable.  
     Single legal victories can jumpstart 
an overhaul of dramatic opinions but just 
because an opinion is invested by the 
power of law, individuals are not always 
compelled to follow the law. Often, a 
series of similar laws with similar ideas 
are created in order for the idea to be 
enforced by the law. For example, 
although the landmark case Brown v. 
Board of Education of Topeka Kansas 
ruled that separate but equal facilities 
were unconstitutional in 1954, the law 
was not enforced until years later. Then 
ten years after Brown v. Board of 
Education of Topeka Kansas was the 
construction of the Civil Rights Act of 
1964, which prohibited many kinds of 
discrimination based on race, color, 
religion or national origin. The creation 
of both laws, which have their roots in 
antidiscrimination, exemplifies how an 
idea transformed into a law may need to 
be expanded or reiterated for the idea to 
permeate society and be followed and 
respected as a law. Therefore, it is 
important to understand that the 
relationship between societal attitudes 
and the law is a process, for several laws 
may share the same idea but not the 
same impact on society.  
     The formation and implementation of 
the Genocide Convention was no 
exception to the rule.  Its process 
required the Polish-Jewish lawyer 
Raphael Lemkin to dedicate his whole 
life and career to convincing the world 
that genocide was the ultimate crime 
against humanity. This section of the 

paper describes Lemkin’s crusade for a 
ban against genocide. His crusade 
entailed the difficulties in constructing 
the term genocide and the difficult 
reception he received endorsing it in 
political arenas like the Madrid 
Conference of 1933 and the Nuremberg 
Trials. Lemkin’s lobbying tactics 
extended beyond legal conferences and 
military tribunals to the media and 
networking with policy makers. He 
employed political strategies at every 
opportunity despite receiving criticism 
and reluctance, for each opportunity was 
another step closer toward ratifying the 
Genocide Convention.  
     Constructing the term genocide was a 
process in itself. The objective of his 
crusade was to stop “the targeted 
destruction of ethnic, national, and 
religious groups” (Power 2003:21). 
Since Lemkin was particularly sensitive 
to the preservation of “both the physical 
and cultural existence of groups,” he 
conceptualized targeted attacks against 
social groups into two separate but 
similar ideas: barbarity and vandalism 
(Power 2003:21). He defined barbarity 
as the “premeditated destruction of 
national, racial, religious and social 
collectivities” and vandalism was its 
consequence in which “works of art and 
culture, being the expression of the 
particular genius of these collectivities,” 
where obliterated (Power 2003:21).  He 
pushed for an international commitment 
against barbarity and vandalism so that 
instigators and perpetrators could “be 
punished wherever they were caught 
regardless of where the crime was 
committed or the criminals’ nationality 
or official status” (Power 2003:20). This 
condition intended to prevent asylum 
from being the way to elude 



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responsibility and did not protect 
individuals of certain positions from 
being guilty of committing genocide. 
Lemkin also proposed that if there was a 
collective effort toward condemning 
barbarity and vandalism, enforcement 
and punishment would be easily 
facilitated.  
     However, uniting entities to ban an 
act that seemed to be intuitively wrong 
proved to be halted by politics. For 
example, at the 1933 Madrid conference, 
participants could not indefinitely say 
“yes” or “no” to Lemkin’s proposal on 
banning barbarity and vandalism (Power 
2003:22). Indecisiveness on the issue 
presented the troubling dichotomy of 
being prepared to intervene despite any 
political costs and the preparedness to 
acknowledge that inaction allows for 
death and destruction to take place. Such 
a dichotomy presented itself again in 
World War II when Hitler repeated the 
Young Turks’ mass extermination tactics 
against the Jews. However, it was not 
until Hitler reintroduced such 
devilishness to the world that people 
were more interested in intervention.   
     After Winston Churchill declared that 
“the whole of Europe ha[d] been 
wrecked and trampled down by the 
mechanical weapons and barbaric fury 
of the Nazis,” leaving the world “in the 
presence of a crime without a name,” 
Lemkin knew that he was not successful 
in establishing and convincing the world 
of his concepts of barbarity and 
vandalism (Power 2003:29). Thus in 
1943, Lemkin united the terms barbarity 
and vandalism to create the word 
“genocide,” combining geno, a Greek 
derivative meaning “race or tribe,” with 
cide, meaning killing in Latin (Power 
2003:42). He hoped that this term would 

identify what he had been trying to 
advocate against for over ten years. 
Although Webster’s New International 
Dictionary’s admittance of the word was 
a testament that the world’s attention 
was shifting toward confronting the 
subject matter, simply having a name for 
something did not mean that it could 
easily be applied. (Power 2003:44).  
     The Nuremberg Trials were another 
opportunity to create awareness for 
Lemkin’s cause. Capitalizing on the 
momentum built up by the world’s 
outrage against Hitler’s outright 
annihilation of the Jews presented the 
prospect of persuading prominent 
lawyers and policy makers in attendance 
that the prevention and punishment of 
genocide was an international concern 
that required an international law to be 
enforced. However, they neglected one 
of Lemkin’s main conditions: although 
the Allies were prosecuting crimes 
against humanity, the perpetrators were 
not being punished for “slaughter 
whenever and wherever it occurred” 
(Power 2003:49). Instead, the loophole 
in the precedent international law 
permitted genocidal acts if the act took 
place within “an internationally 
recognized border” by perpetrators 
inhabiting that border (Power 2003:49). 
Thus, “if the Nazis had exterminated the 
entire German- Jewish population but 
never invaded Poland, they would not 
have been liable at Nuremberg” (Power 
2003:49). Furthermore, Nazi defendants 
were only “tried for atrocities they 
committed during but not before” the 
war (Power 2003:49).  
     Lemkin urged prosecutors daily to 
add genocide to the “tribunal’s list of 
punishable crimes” (Power 2003:50). 
Although he was considered an 



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annoyance, his persistence paid off with 
a modest victory. The October 1945 
Nuremberg indictment declared that all 
twenty-four defendants “conducted 
deliberate and systematic genocide 
[through] the extermination of racial and 
national groups, against the civilian 
populations of certain occupied 
territories” (Power 2003:50). However, 
the downside was that even though 
genocide was stated in the indictment, 
the conviction of nineteen Nazi 
defendants on the count of “crimes 
against peace, war crimes, and crimes 
against humanity” failed to mention the 
term genocide (Power 2003:50). 
     After his campaign against genocide 
did not succeed as part of the Nuremberg 
judgment, Lemkin proposed his ban at 
the 1946 Peace Conferences in England 
and France, to no avail (Power 2003:50). 
Following his defeat, Lemkin went to a 
United Nations conference on October 
31, 1946 (Power 2003:51). Reporters 
and UN delegates described Lemkin as 
diligent but more of a pest. New York 
Times reporter A.M. Rosenthal stated: “I 
don’t remember how I met him…but I 
remember I was always meeting him” 
(Power 2003:52). Journalists reported 
that Lemkin had the habits of stopping 
by offices daily to offer a different 
perspective of his genocide campaign 
and cornering delegates in the cafeteria, 
all the while looking unpolished and 
tattered (Power 2003:52). Lemkin even 
“carried a thick file folder bulging with 
gruesome details of various cases” so he 
could present the history of genocide 
wherever he went and to whoever he 
encountered (Power 2003:54). He hoped 
that his “files on the destruction of the 
Maronites, the Herreros in Africa, the 
Huguenots in France, the Protestants in 

Bohemia after the Battle of White 
Mountain, the Hottentots, the Armenians 
in 1915 and the Jews, gypsies and Slavs 
by the Nazis” would be so unbearable 
that the UN delegates “would eventually 
agree to vote for the proposed 
convention simply in order to bring the 
daily litany of carnage to as rapid an end 
as possible” (Power 2003:55).  
     However, Lemkin did not just rely on 
the horrendousness of genocide, in hopes 
that horror would compel others to act 
based on guilt and moral obligation. 
Instead, he also used other political 
strategies to appeal to others’ values and 
interests for it was the conflicting values 
and interests that impeded others from 
joining his ban in the first place. To tap 
into the interests of the people in the 
countries that he was trying to persuade, 
Lemkin contacted organizations that 
members of the United Nations were 
associated with so that they could urge 
their UN representative to join his ban 
against genocide (Power 2003:55).  
     Finally, on December 9, 1948, the 
United Nations General Assembly 
passed the resolution of the Convention 
on the Prevention and Punishment of the 
Crime of Genocide (Power 2003:61). It 
stated what constituted genocide and 
criminalized genocidal acts while 
binding all signatories’ commitment to 
the upholding the treaty. As the first 
human rights treaty adopted by the 
United Nations, the Genocide 
Convention introduced the idea of 
accountability and made genocide not an 
internal concern but a global concern 
(Power 2003:60).  
     However, Lemkin did not stop here; 
adopting the treaty as an international 
law would require twenty UN member 
states to ratify it domestically. 



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Therefore, he returned to his lobbying 
tactics by using his self-made network of 
correspondents he met while drafting the 
convention for a total of seventeen years 
(Power 2003:62). His valuable resource 
bank gave him access to influential 
public officials, organizations and heads 
of newspapers to “gauge the influence” 
of different communities and social 
forces (Power 2003:63). He did his 
research—asking “friends, friends of 
friends, and acquaintances of 
acquaintances to familiarize himself with 
a country” (Power 2003:63). He kept 
tabs on countries by sending letters to 
officials inquiring why they had not 
ratified the treaty and pressed them to do 
so. He would give updates of those who 
did just to show who was on board 
(Power 2003:64). 
     Nevertheless, Lemkin knew that “the 
United States, the world’s most powerful 
democracy, would have to take the lead 
in enforcing the genocide ban” since it 
“had long been a symbol of freedom and 
democratic progress to people less 
favored” (Power 2003:64). As the icon 
for human rights, the United States’ 
involvement seemed inevitable. 
However, it would take four decades for 
the US to ratify the Genocide 
Convention due to the criticism that 
surrounded the clarity of the treaty along 
with the political burden being attached 
to it. Although the humanitarian 
intention was clear, the Genocide 
Convention’s definition of genocide was 
not.  
     From a numerical standpoint, it is 
debatable how many deaths or forced 
deportations have to occur in order to 
amount to genocide. The problem lies in 
numerical variances: percentages would 
allow perpetrators to strategically escape 

punishment by supporting killing with 
careful consideration of how many 
deaths are permitted and how many are 
not. In addition, law is not beneficial or 
effective if it is only prevalent after a 
certain number of deaths among a 
protected group under the Genocide 
Convention occur.  
     Critics also complained that the treaty 
was too broad, giving inventive lawyers 
the opportunity to pin nations down. For 
example, the United States could be 
implicated for committing genocide on 
the accounts of segregation in the South 
or suppression of minorities like women 
and children (Power 2003:68). However, 
the most significant opposition for any 
country was international scrutiny. 
Agreeing to the pact surrendered a 
nation’s autonomy for it relinquished the 
right for internal affairs to remain 
internal. Furthermore, international 
scrutiny could lead to an entanglement 
of alliances. For Americans, regulating 
human rights was already tough on 
American soil and doing it on foreign 
soil would be even tougher (Power 
2003:69). A plausible yet passive 
alternative would be advancing human 
rights through education and by 
example, not through the enforcement of 
an international law. 
     Controversy over legal terms and the 
political implications involved in 
ratifying the Genocide Convention was 
problematic for government officials and 
thus explains their indifference and 
postponement on completely committing 
or completely withdrawing their efforts 
from ratification. Additionally, other 
human rights treaties added to the 
perplexity. For example, Eleanor 
Roosevelt’s Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights extended Western 



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ideologies of inherent rights to human 
beings on a global level. The document, 
which was approved by the General 
Assembly one day after the Genocide 
Convention, expressed “principles of 
civil, political, economic and social 
justice” that are essential to preserving 
humanity (Power 2003:74). Lemkin 
criticized Roosevelt’s UDHR, arguing 
that “if every abuse were to become a 
subject of international concern…states 
would recoil against international law 
and would not respond to the greatest 
crime of all,” which he claimed was 
genocide (Power 2003:75). Lemkin 
feared that the genocide pact would be 
unneeded since the UDHR was so 
expansive and could be used as a blanket 
to cover all crimes against humanity. For 
example, genocide could be deemed as a 
form of discrimination, which falls under 
the provisions of UDHR. However, 
infringing on basic rights was different 
than annihilating a population. Lemkin 
argued: “Genocide implies destruction, 
death, annihilation, while discrimination 
is a regrettable denial of certain 
opportunities of life. To be unequal is 
not the same as to be dead” (Power 
2003:75). 
     Although Lemkin had a rebuttal for 
every criticism against his life’s work, 
he would never complete the process of 
legally establishing the Genocide 
Convention. He died August 28, 1959 at 
the age of fifty-nine, penniless and 
alone. Despite fighting for the legacy of 
millions and for the protection for future 
generations, only seven people attended 
his funeral (Power 2003:78). After 
Lemkin’s death, incidences of genocide 
occurred just as he predicted if the 
Genocide Convention did not pass 
ratification.  

     For example, in 1968, oppressive 
Muslim Nigeria killed one million 
Christian Ibos by cutting off supplies to 
the inhabitants of Biafra to prevent 
secession (Power 2003:81). The Johnson 
administration delayed famine relief 
measures to aid the Ibos because they 
were mindful of oil reserves in the 
Iboland and feared interference from the 
Soviet Union (Power 2003:82). Thus, 
they did not want to exacerbate conflict 
with another powerful nation nor 
jeopardize a potential economic interest.  
     Another example of political interests 
overriding safeguarding humanity is the 
case of the Bangladesh Liberation War. 
In 1971, Pakistani troops killed two 
million Bengalis and raped 200,000 
Bengali girls and women to stop Bengali 
nationalists from achieving autonomy. 
The Nixon administration did not 
interject because Pakistan was their 
intermediary to China, a hopeful ally for 
the United States (Power 2003:82).  
     The following year, genocide took 
place in Burundi. The ruling Tutsis 
killed tens of thousands of Hutus after a 
Hutu-led rebellion (Power 2003:82). The 
U.S. was committed to noninvolvement 
despite reports of death tallies, which 
were one thousand deaths a day. U.S. 
supported their blind-eye position by 
advocating the mentality that the 
problem solvers should be those who are 
burdened with the problem. 
Consequently, the U.S. continued to be 
Burundi’s chief customer of the 
country’s coffee industry, contributing to 
sixty-five percent of Burundi’s 
commercial revenue (Power 2003:83). 
      Although Lemkin was dead, Senator 
William Proxmire had been continuing 
his crusade since January 11, 1967 
(Power 2002:81). Like Lemkin, 



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Proxmire promoted the cause of banning 
genocide by delivering a “daily 
soliloquy” to the Senate, emphasizing 
the failure to act was a “national shame” 
(Power 2003:85). After a decade and 
3,211 speeches, Proxmire earned support 
from President Nixon and the Senate in 
1985. The United States would later 
ratify the Genocide Convention in 1988 
(Power 2003:167). The persistence of 
both Proxmire and Lemkin illustrate that 
the course of legalizing a piece of 
legislation that, although it may address 
an issue that is collectively condemned, 
is still a lobbying affair. The emotional 
subject matter may not give rise to 
action simply because of the emotions 
involved. Even though legal procedures 
are in place as an avenue for people to 
express what is important to them and 
make something of it in the form of law, 
this does not mean that it is a political 
priority that commands legal 
commitment. After all, creating, passing 
and implementing legislation is 
generally a complex and extended 
process. 
 
The Empowerment of Human Rights  
      International Law primarily is a body 
of rules regulating conduct between 
States, but “the international community 
has shown an increasing interest in the 
protection of the individual against the 
arbitrary action of his State” (Toriguian 
1973:49). The question is what makes a 
case worthy of international concern 
and, more important, what jurisdiction 
do states have that entitle them to 
intervene? In the previous section, 
Raphael Lemkin struggled to persuade 
nations that genocide was a global 
concern. This section attempts to show 
why nations are obligated to promote 

human rights within and beyond their 
borders. 
     The Preamble of the Charter of the 
United Nations states that one of their 
global concerns is to “reaffirm faith in 
the fundamental human rights, in the 
dignity and worth of the human person, 
in the equal rights of men and women 
and of nations large and small” 
(Toriguian 1973:51). Article One of this 
document declares that one purpose of 
the United Nations is to “achieve 
international cooperation…in promoting 
and encouraging respect for human 
rights and for fundamental freedoms, all 
without distinction as to race, sex, 
language or religion” (Toriguian 
1973:51). Thus, persecuted individuals 
are subjects of international law and 
should have legal protection of their 
freedoms (Toriguian 1973:53).  
     The United Nations adopted their first 
human rights treaty, the Genocide 
Convention, on December 9, 1948 
(Power 2003:60). This document defined 
the term genocide, elaborated what 
constituted genocide and detailed how to 
prevent and punish genocide if the crime 
was committed (Power 2003: 58). Due 
to disagreements over the definition of 
genocide, the terms of the document and 
an unwillingness to support it under 
international law, the Genocide 
Convention was a fifteen-year battle to 
even be “approved and proposed for 
signature” by the General Assembly and 
would not be effective until three years 
later on January 12, 1951 (Power 2003: 
62). There are currently “140 State 
Parties—and 41 States as signatories—to 
the genocide convention” who have 
pledged to uphold the convention and 
implement crimes of genocide “through 
the International Court of Justice, as well 



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as criminal prosecution before 
international tribunals” (Pillay 2009). 
     The United Nations adopted The 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights 
one day after adopting the Genocide 
Convention to solidify the need to 
protect human rights throughout the 
world (Toriguian 1973:52). On 
December 10, 1948, the document 
distinguished “a common standard of 
achievement for all people and all 
nations” (Power 2003:75).  Although the 
declaration did not legally bind states, it 
identified fundamental rights and 
recognized the necessity for universal 
protection. The Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights failed to enforce 
responsibility in case the ideal standards 
of humanity were breached but 
succeeded in promoting “the creation of 
conditions of stability and well-being 
which are necessary for peaceful and 
friendly relations” (Toriguian 1973:52). 
In other words, it encouraged nations to 
intrinsically incorporate fundamental 
rights into every framework of law.  
     To answer the question posited in the 
opening paragraph, the preservation of 
fundamental human rights is an 
international matter that should be 
upheld by the international community. 
Documents like the Genocide 
Convention and the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights should 
empower nations to practice what they 
endorse on paper. However, the irony is 
that although these documents give 
standards and legal grounds for policing 
human rights violations, they do little for 
enforcing what they declare. This irony 
suggests that legislation means nothing 
and law loses its power if the laws are 
not enforced. Thus, the fight for laws 
goes beyond getting laws approved and 

ratified but the fight continues with 
putting the laws into action.    
 
Retroactive Justice 

This section of the paper is dedicated 
to identifying that what befell the 
Armenians in 1915 constitutes genocide. 
I will reference the Genocide 
Convention to reveal how certain actions 
of the Turkish government support my 
claim that the Armenians experienced 
genocide and thus should receive 
restitution. I will also reference the 
Nuremberg Trials and the Convention on 
the Non-Applicability of Statutory 
Limitation to War Crimes Against 
Humanity to address the debate between 
holding past and present day Turkey 
accountable for what the Armenians 
suffered and writing it all off as not 
admissible due to an ex-post facto 
mentality.  

The 1946 judgment of German war 
criminals in the Nuremberg Trials relied 
on the Charter of 1945, which defined 
crimes against humanity as “murder, 
extermination, enslavement, deportation 
and other inhumane acts committed 
against any civilian population on racial 
or religious grounds” (Toriguian 
1973:50). However, German defenses 
argued that “to give a law a retroactive 
effect is a breach of a fundamental 
principle of natural justice”; therefore, 
such acts committed by the Germans 
before 1945 were inadmissible 
(Toriguian1973:50). Yet with the 
conviction of German authorities 
responsible for the Holocaust, one can 
gather that it is agreed among the 
international community that “certain 
wrongs committed by a State against its 
own nationals,” if “so odious in nature” 
and identifiable as “crimes against 



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humanity,” can be punishable due to 
“existing rules of customary 
international law” (Toriguian 1973:50).  
After all, it was the common outrage and 
disgust over the atrocities that the 
Germans committed that motivated the 
military tribunals in the first place. Thus, 
in the Nuremberg case, the court was not 
exercising the implementation of a new 
law but declared a rule of customary 
international law in light of crimes that 
would be condemned by any “civilized 
world” (Toriguian 1973:51).  
      In the same way as the Holocaust, 
the Armenian Genocide faces the 
question of retroactively applying law to 
obtain justice. It is undeniable that the 
Armenian massacres of 1915 fall under 
the Genocide Convention of 1948, but 
can the document hold the Turks 
responsible for their actions and 
therefore punish them for their crimes?  
     First it is necessary to identify the 
unlawful acts committed by the Turks 
and if they constitute genocide. Article 
Two in the Genocide Convention of 
1948 details what acts qualify as 
genocide. According to this article, the 
Turks are guilty of genocide for they 
killed members of the Armenian group, 
“caused serious bodily and mental harm” 
to the Armenians, purposely imposed 
“conditions of life calculated to bring 
about” the destruction of the Armenian 
race, prevented Armenian births to end 
future existence of the race and “forcibly 
tranferr[ed] children of the group to 
another group” (Power 2003:57)   What 
made these massacres genocide “was 
that one set of individuals intended to 
destroy the members of a group not 
because of anything they did but because 
of who they were” (Power 2003:58). 
Therefore, if an ethnic, racial or religious 

group was not targeted, it would be 
called mass homicide, not genocide. 
Thus, three elements were required in 
order to violate the Genocide 
Convention: (1) one of the acts listed in 
Article Two had to be carried out (2) 
with the intent to destroy all or part of 
(3) one of the groups protected (Power 
2003: 57).  
     Now that I have shown that this is a 
case of genocide, what can be argued in 
favor of holding Turkey responsible? If 
the informal “rule of customary 
international law” is not an accepted 
argument, then consider “a general 
principle of law that as long as a wrong 
continues and its effects continue to be 
felt, the date of inception of the act for 
the application of a subsequent law is 
irrelevant” (Toriguian 1973:55). For 
example, “every time an Armenian loses 
his identity, it is the genocide planned 
and started in 1915 that continues to bear 
its fruits”; Armenians living outside of 
Armenia today are a product of the 
Diaspora spawned by forcible 
relocations of the genocide and thus this 
current consequence “is a breach of the 
provisions of the Genocide Convention” 
(Toriguian 1973:55). Therefore, States 
that have endorsed United Nations 
Organizations, the Genocide Convention 
of 1948 or the Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights should be committed to 
stopping and punishing the continuation 
of the wrath of the genocide (Toriguian 
1973:56). Consequently, without directly 
“incriminating the Turkish people as 
whole or the Turks as individuals,” the 
current Turkish administration is guilty 
by association; that is, the Turkish state 
acquires the responsibilities inherited 
before them from their predecessors 
(Toriguian 1973:57). Furthermore, since 



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Turkey is a signatory of the Genocide 
Convention, “any other signatory can 
therefore ask Turkey to perform its 
obligations under Convention and in 
case of refusal,” Article 11 of the 
Convention states that “any dispute 
arising out of the convention, including 
that relating to the responsibility for a 
State for genocide” shall be settled in 
International Court of Justice (Toriguian 
1973:57). 
     In addition, the Convention on the 
Non-Applicability of Statutory 
Limitation to War Crimes Against 
Humanity contends that genocide should 
be punishable “whenever committed” 
(Toriguian 1973:56). This doctrine 
adopted on November 26, 1968 
addresses the idea of ex-post facto laws 
(Toriguian 1973:56). Article One states 
that “no statutory limitation shall apply 
to” war crimes and crimes against 
humanity “irrespective of the date of 
their commission” (Toriguian 1973:56). 
Some violations of “war crimes” listed 
in Article 6b of the Convention include 
murder, deportation and destroying and 
plundering cities, towns or villages—all 
of which were committed by the Turks 
and documented by foreign ambassadors 
and missionaries who witnessed the 
atrocities and confirmed by survivors of 
the genocide (Toriguian 1973:59). 
According to Article 6c of the 
Convention, these crimes become 
“crimes against humanity” when such 
acts as stated previously are committed 
on “political, racial or religious 
grounds”; Pan-Turianism attests that the 
Turkish government was purposeful in 
their victimizing acts (Toriguian 
1973:59).  
     The Convention on the Non-
Applicability of Statutory Limitation to 

War Crimes Against Humanity supports 
the idea that past, present and future 
perpetrators of war crimes and crimes 
against humanity “should be traced, 
apprehended and punished” (Toriguian 
1973:58). It disregards the inconsistency 
of the time when an act is committed for 
it asserts that the time when an act is 
deemed illegal by law is irrelevant when 
the offense is so “heinous” in nature 
(Toriguian 1973:60). Furthermore, this 
document affirms that the “punishment 
of such a crime [like genocide] is part of 
international public policy” (Toriguian 
1973:56). In other words, the severity of 
the crime should compel the 
actualization of justice and 
accountability should not be denied 
based on time or stare decisis. Donald 
Shriver (2001:8), the author of Truth 
Commissions and Judicial Trials, 
proclaimed that “legal procedure, after 
war, is a retreat from war. It embodies 
the hope that in the wake of 
unacceptable forms of human conflict, 
courts can lead the way to more 
acceptable forms,” but there is no use to 
establish standards if they are not 
enforced in the future and if crimes 
committed in the past go unpunished. 
 
Pointing the Finger: The Blame Game 

As in the previous section, this 
section of the paper further evaluates 
Turkey’s accountability during WWI in 
regard to their treatment toward the 
Armenians. I will support my claim that 
Turkey is accountable for the crime of 
genocide through the perspective of the 
International League for the Rights and 
Liberation of Peoples. I will present their 
argument for why retroactive justice is 
applicable and discuss Turkey’s invalid 



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attempt to blame the Armenians for 
Turkey’s violent actions toward them. 

“The Permanent People’s Tribunal: 
Session on the Genocide of the 
Armenians” conducted in Paris, France 
from April 13 to April 16, 1984 was 
“brought into existence partly to 
overcome the moral and political failures 
of states as instruments of justice” 
(International League 7). The Tribunal 
also pointed out “the complicity of 
leading Western states that have various 
economic, political and military ties with 
the Turkish state” that consequently 
protected Turkey from being held 
accountable and prolonged restitution 
(International League 7). The Tribunal 
set out to address three questions: (1) if 
the Armenians were victims of 
deportations and massacres under the 
Ottoman Empire, (2) whether the 
Genocide Convention of 1948 and the 
Non-Applicability of Statutory 
Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes 
Against Humanity can be applied in their 
case, and (3) what consequences are in 
order for the international community 
and Turkey (International League 7). 

As discussed in the previous section, 
Armenians did suffer atrocities defined 
by the Genocide Convention of 1948 
that are “not subject to statutory 
limitations” within the Convention. 
Thus, the Convention is “declaratory of 
existing law in that it takes note of rules 
which were already in force at the time 
of the incriminated acts” (International 
League 21). Therefore, the Young Turk 
administration is guilty of this 
international crime of genocide and the 
present Turkish government inherits this 
responsibility. They are first obligated to 
officially recognize the commission of 
genocide and then address the “damages 

suffered by the Armenian people” 
(International League 22).  

The Tribunal argues that just because 
it took years for the term “genocide” to 
be coined and the Genocide Convention 
to be ratified does not mean that the 
crime did not exist previous to their 
acceptance, for it was a “collective 
conscience” that made the term and 
doctrine identifiable (International 
League 18). Because this topic was so 
controversial and aroused such 
repugnance, the Tribunal asserts that 
there is a “legal obligation which cannot 
be ignored by states on the pretext that 
they have not been expressed formally in 
treaties,” for “the condemnation of 
crimes committed during the first World 
War bears out the belief of states that 
such crimes could not be tolerated 
legally even though no written rules 
explicitly forbade them” (International 
League 18). For that reason, the fact that 
society is collectively aware and 
offended by the violence endured by the 
Armenians, invokes an obligation for the 
international community to seek justice 
and any member of the international 
community can and should hold Turkey 
responsible.     

Turkey’s attempt to shift blame onto 
the Armenians by accusing them of 
“committing acts of sedition,” which the 
Turks argue caused them to detain the 
Armenians in order to prevent a violent 
rebellion and secure the state, is faced 
with the argument that nothing compares 
to genocide for “genocide is a crime 
which admits of no grounds for excuse 
or justification” (International League 
19). Not only do the immediate victims 
suffer from genocide, but every 
occurrence of genocide is a “degradation 
and perversion of humanity as a whole” 



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(International League 21). Therefore, 
every nation is both a victim and a 
perpetrator for everyone suffers the loss 
of integrity as a result of genocide and is 
guilty of not stopping it or rectifying it 
afterwards. 

 
Legalizing Injustice 

There are many dimensions to the 
law that make it absolute, contradictory, 
beneficial and harmful (Friedrichs 
2006:6). In general, law is absolute in 
such a way that the law must be obeyed 
or else consequences arise. It is 
contradictory in that the law does not 
always reflect all attitudes of society as 
it aspires to and often produces 
inconsistencies. It is beneficial because 
the law provides the structure for an 
organized and efficient society. 
However, it is also harmful because the 
law can be manipulated to achieve 
special interests of dominant groups. 
This reality undermines the very 
sentiment of law, which is to ensure all 
individuals are welcome to take pleasure 
in every good thing that life offers with 
the assurance of equality and fairness. 
Thus, law has positive and negative 
functions. While the law may maintain 
order, it also maintains and legitimizes 
the dominance of hierarchy. While 
settling disputes, the law creates 
rivalries. While providing an avenue for 
a society to satisfy its need for 
restoration after a wrongdoer offends 
society by breaking the law, the law 
consequently exploits people and creates 
out-groups. While promoting justice, the 
law encourages conflict and violence 
often fueled with spite and revenge.   
While the law creates a standard to 
which to aspire, the law also allows for 
oppression and greed to transpire for it is 

questionable whose social values are 
trying to be achieved. While managing 
practical needs for society, the law 
extends state power, often enhancing 
their power and abusing legal 
mechanisms like the military and taxes 
to advance interests of the powerful 
(Friedrichs 2006:9).  

At the very least, the law is supposed 
to provide individuals with a sense of 
security that they are protected from 
harm from one another and from the 
state. Law should be used in the best 
interest of humanity but in the case of 
the Turkish government, the law was an 
instrument to oppress and injure the 
Armenians. Already there seems to be a 
violation of the sentiment of law itself. 
In an ideal law-governing world, laws 
embrace the right to life and liberty 
because they are inherent to human 
beings; no one should be discriminated 
against on the account of their race, 
creed or any category that separates one 
from another for no one can be separate 
in the eyes of the law. In this section, I 
will describe how the Turkish 
government used the law to make 
discrimination against the Armenians 
lawful or, in other words, how they 
legalized injustice. As a result, the 
Armenian Genocide transpired partly 
through the use of state-directed 
influence and bureaucratic execution.  

From a sociological perspective, 
nationalism was the social force that 
provoked genocide, the law permitted 
the genocide to happen and the Turkish 
bureaucracy actualized it. The Ottoman 
Government sensationalized nationalism 
to essentially convince Turkish 
constituents that ethnocentrically 
motivated litigation was necessary and 
acceptable. Enver Pasha, Mehmed Talat 



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and Ahmed Djemal—known as the 
Three Pashas—headed the Ottoman 
Government in the dominant political 
party called the Committee of Union and 
Progress (Freedman 2009:180). 
Members of the Committee of Union 
and Progress, also known as the Young 
Turks, used Pan-Turanianism to rally 
support for implementing supposed 
progressive and safety measures. They 
insisted that a pure Turkish nation would 
restore their crumbling empire and thus 
they needed to stop the non-Muslims 
who threatened it. Consequently, 
Nationalism justified the Young Turks’ 
assault against the Armenians, the law 
legitimized it and the bureaucracy made 
it happen.  

A campaign for genocide ensued 
with the outbreak of World War One. 
The Ottoman Government issued a 
statement “accusing the Armenians of 
attempting to destroy the peace and 
security of the Ottoman State” 
(Freedman 2009:21). Since many 
Armenians lived within Russian borders 
due to Russia’s victory in the Russo-
Turkish War of 1877-1878, the Ottoman 
Government asked Armenians “to 
engage in secret operations” to aid 
Turkey’s war efforts (Freedman 
2009:18). When the Armenians declined 
to avoid Turkish-Armenian and Russian-
Armenian warfare and betray Russia, 
who was like a guardian to them, the 
Ottoman Government used their 
resistance to foster the idea that the 
Armenians were traitors siding with the 
enemy (Freedman 2009:18). Therefore, 
the Ottoman Government led people to 
believe that they were “compelled to 
take extraordinary measures to preserve 
the order and security of the country” by 
relocating the Armenian population 

(Freedman 2009:21). The official 
statement went on to say that the 
relocation “promote[d] the welfare of the 
Armenian community” by preventing 
civil disputes and violence between 
Turks and Armenian neighbors 
(Freedman 2009:21).  

In The Cunning of History, Richard 
Rubenstein described the Armenian 
Genocide as “the first full-fledged 
attempt by a modern state to practice 
disciplined, methodically organized 
genocide (Friedrichs 2006:180). That is, 
the Young Turks capitalized on “the 
highest level of government planning: 
the harnessing of bureaucracy for the 
organization and implementation of the 
Armenian deportations; the formation 
and organization of killing squads; the 
creation and manipulation of legislation; 
and the use of technology and 
communication” (Balakian 2003:181). In 
short, the annihilation of the Armenians 
was state ordered. Enver Pasha, the 
Minister of War, supervised a special 
bureau called the Special Organization, 
which focused on securing the longevity 
of a pure Turkish nation by monitoring 
and eliminating those suspected of 
treason (Balakian 2003:181). While the 
Special Organization was responsible for 
identifying and putting an end to 
antigovernment activities, their biggest 
impact in the Armenian Genocide was 
administering the Armenian deportations 
and killing squads (Freedman 2009:20; 
Balakian 2003:182).   

To put this task into effect, the 
Temporary Law of Deportation of May 
27, 1915 was instated to give the Special 
Organizations legal authority to deport 
Armenians at will, simply by the 
suspicion of treason (Freedman 
2009:22). Since “suspicion” was the 



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only requirement to deport any 
individuals, the Ottoman Government 
needed a plan to ensure efficient 
deportations (Freedman 2009: 22). Thus, 
the Special Organization “systematically 
recruited, organized and deployed” thirty 
to thirty four thousand convicted 
criminals who worked together with 
Turkish military and provincial police to 
carry out “the rigorous process of arrest 
and deportation, city by city, town by 
town and village by village” (Balakian 
2003:183).  Those involved with the 
deportation were known as killing 
squads because the deportation process 
often resulted in death either because the 
resistance of a deportee to cooperate 
with the order or simply because of the 
free will of soldier, policeman or 
criminal. The irony in using the nation’s 
criminal manpower to advance state 
interests is that criminals represent a 
group that has offended the dominant 
group of society who live by the social 
contract under law and thus have been 
locked up to preserve humanity. Yet in 
this instance, criminals were given 
authority over innocent members of 
society to fulfill a state order.  

This strategy, however, gave the 
Ottoman Government the flexibility to 
divert full responsibility by arguing that 
the criminals did not aid the government 
in the way they intended and instead 
became bandits in their freedom from 
prison (Balakian 2003:183). 
Furthermore, the Temporary Law of 
Deportation in its language also 
deflected blame away from Turkish 
policy makers on the account of solely 
discriminating against the Armenians by 
purposely not singling the Armenians 
out: the law “gave the authorities the 
power to order deportations if they had 

so much as a feeling or sense that an 
individual or group of people might be 
dangerous to the state,” giving 
authorities the license to “round up, 
deport and massacre” anyone not just 
Armenians (Balakian 2003:187). 

To accompany the Temporary Law 
of Deportation and further legalize 
deportations, Talat also issued a 
Proclamation of Rules in June 1915. In 
summary, the Proclamation announced 
that all Armenians except for the sick 
had to evacuate their homes, taking with 
them only what they could carry and if 
they resisted the armed guards escorting 
them, they would be “forced to go or be 
killed” (Freedman 2009:23). The 
Proclamation also prohibited Armenians 
from “selling their property or lands” or 
retrieving money saved in bank 
accounts, allowing Turkish officials to 
seize their assets to fund the war 
(Freedman 2009:23). Muslims Turks 
were also warned that if they aided the 
Christian Armenians their houses would 
be burned and they and the families they 
helped would be killed (Freedman 
2009:18). 

Another example of legislation 
intended to “accelerate the extermination 
plan to give it a further sense of 
governmental legitimacy” was the 
Temporary Law of Expropriation and 
Confiscation (Balakian 2003:187). This 
law, which was effective in September 
1915, was “designed to register the 
properties of the deportees, safeguard 
them, dispose of them at public auctions 
with the revenues to be held in trust” 
until the deportees returned (Balakian 
2003:187). However, the way that the 
authorities maliciously carried out the 
deportation suggests that returning 
Armenian assets was not their intention, 



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for most deportees were massacred or 
died from malnutrition (Balakian 
2003:187). 

The Temporary Law of Deportation 
and the Temporary Law of 
Expropriation and Confiscation are 
legislation that exemplifies the misuse of 
the law in which a dominant group 
legally exploits a subordinate group. The 
Proclamation reveals the attitude that the 
Ottoman Government had toward the 
Armenians and their intention to rid 
them out of their empire. Hierarchy in 
the Ottoman Government was 
perpetuated by an administration that 
relied on a bureaucracy to orchestrate 
and calculate the Armenian Genocide. 
The Committee of Union and Progress 
“created a hierarchical administration to 
carry out the Armenian killing 
operations” consisting of three 
bureaucrats: responsible secretaries, 
delegates and general inspectors 
(Balakian 2003: 185). These bureaucrats 
were either politicians or former army 
officers, all loyal to the Pan-Turanianism 
fantasy.  

Because the Armenian Genocide was 
encouraged by the state and 
implemented by state institutions, I 
argue that the irony in the image of the 
protectors being the offenders, and the 
very institutions meant to ensure 
protection being the mechanism for 
injustice, supports conflict theorists’ 
argument that tension is deeply rooted 
between the rich and the poor and tends 
to intensify if exploitations of the law 
are not addressed. The corruption within 
the Ottoman Government and the Young 
Turks’ perversion of the law disheartens 
the faith in the ideas of government and 
law which are both globally celebrated 
and criticized. Both government and law 

are celebrated because the two concepts 
are intended to instill order in society. 
Conversely, both government and law 
are criticized because the type of order 
that a government chooses is neither 
agreed upon by everyone living under 
that government nor is the type of order 
a result of a compromise between the 
rich and dominant groups and the poor 
and subordinate groups.  

I support the argument that the 
Armenian Genocide was not simply a 
consequence of war; rather the war was 
used to cover up a long awaited 
opportunity to isolate the Armenians 
from Turkey due to ethnocentric 
attitudes that influenced the laws at the 
Armenians’ expense before, during and 
even after World War I. Therefore, it is 
necessary to restore faith in government 
and law by ending governmental 
corruption and passive injustice or the 
reluctance to get involved (Friedrichs 
2006:74). Instead, government and law 
should be used to improve social welfare 
even if it means admitting wrongdoing. 
Continuing the misuse of law or passive 
injustice contradicts the global 
expectation of using government and 
law as a means to maintain order and 
protect the happiness for humankind. For 
if the law did not serve the Armenians 
before in protecting their inherent right 
of human beings or by the Entente 
Powers not following through with the 
Treaties of San Stefano and Berlin, let 
the law serve them now by addressing 
the Armenian Genocide.  
 
 
CONTROVERSY OF POLITICAL 
MOTIVES 
 
Equating Justice and Vengeance 



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When the laws handicap individuals 
in society, individuals may band together 
to challenge their oppressors. In this 
section, I will examine regular citizens 
taking justice into their own hands and 
discuss whether their actions achieve 
justice or undermine it with the 
conviction of vengeance. 
      The Armenians tried to calm social 
unrest through the formation of political 
parties. Although the political parties 
shared the common objective of self-
determination for the Armenian people, 
the means to achieve this differed from 
party to party. For example, in 1885 the 
political group called the Armenakans 
aimed for autonomy by peaceful means 
and aid from European support. 
However, the absence of fear aroused by 
potential bodily harm and a less than 
politically-aggressive Europe proved to 
be ineffective. Thus, the political tone 
changed from diplomacy to violence. In 
1887, the Hunchaks were formed and 
preferred the use of aggression and 
bloodshed (Alexander 1991:32). Then in 
1890, the Armenian Revolutionary 
Federation, or ARF, was created to unify 
and combine all previous political 
parties and endeavors; this meant 
achieving “self-determination and social 
and economic reforms for the Armenians 
of Ottoman Turkey through any means,” 
whether it was negotiation or terror 
(Alexander 1991:33).  
     Political groups remained active even 
after the genocide. Post-genocide 
political groups are arguably even more 
significant for rectifying the plight of 
Armenians, for they pursued justice by 
punishing Turkish officials who 
orchestrated and executed the genocide. 
However, the question is: what is the 
appropriate punishment? Does murder 

justify another murder? Operation 
Nemesis was the code name for a covert 
operation for an “international web of 
agents to hunt down and assassinate the 
leading Turkish war criminals” 
(Alexander 1991:47). Under the 
umbrella of ARF, agents of Operation 
Nemesis were trained and given any 
resources required to locate, identify and 
execute targets. This included housing, 
money, weapons and emotional support 
(Alexander 1991:75). From 1920 to 
1922, Operation Nemesis was 
responsible for eight deaths of prominent 
Turks, including Talat and Jemal, two of 
the three Pashas and Behaeddin Shakir, 
one of the leaders of the Special 
Organization who led convicted 
criminals in the killing squads (Graber 
1996:174).  
     One of the most controversial 
assassinations was that of Talat Pasha, 
one of the three main leaders of the 
Young Turks who authorized the 
deportation of Armenians that initiated 
the genocide. The trial of his assassin 
presented the contentious question of 
vengeance versus justice. Was Talat’s 
killer Soghomon Tehlirian a murderer, a 
terrorist or a pawn used to carry out 
ARF’s objectives? (Alexander 
1991:198)  
     Soghomon Tehlirian was an 
Armenian Genocide survivor who 
suffered from a form of epilepsy (Graber 
1996: 171). According to the doctors 
who examined his psychological state in 
order to evaluate his competency for 
trial, Tehlirian was traumatized by the 
horrors of genocide, especially after 
witnessing the deaths of his mother, 
brother and sister (Alexander 1991:70). 
After the caravan that was transporting 
him, his family and a group of others 



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was ambushed, Tehlirian was the sole 
survivor left behind to die from a blow 
to the head. He awoke with his brother’s 
lifeless body and split head on top of 
him and then discovered his mother’s 
dead body due to a gunshot wound 
(Alexander 1991: 70). His last images 
that he remembered before going 
unconscious was watching his sister 
being dragged off to be raped and killed 
and his first images after regaining 
consciousness was that of mutilated 
bodies, two of which were his family 
members (Alexander 1991:70). It was 
clear that the ordeal affected him 
physically and psychologically (Graber 
1996:171).  
     Accordingly, Tehlirian used as his 
main defense in trial that he was 
“emotionally obsessed, mentally 
unbalanced and suffering from a form of 
epilepsy brought on by his excruciating 
experience” (Alexander 1991:199). That 
is, “Tehlirians’s deed was committed as 
a justifiable and moral act of revenge for 
the murder of his family” (Alexander 
1991:199). By emphasizing personal 
rather than political motives for the 
assassination and withholding the 
information of his involvement with 
ARF and the Nemesis network, Tehlirian 
was acquitted of murder charges even 
though he admitted to killing Talat. 
Because the trial exposed the atrocities 
experienced by Armenians at the hands 
of Turkish authorities in gruesome detail 
as provided by the testimonies of 
Tehlirian and other survivors of the 
genocide, the court was obviously 
sympathetic toward Tehlirian and the 
situation (Alexander 1991:199).  
     Perhaps the courts regarded 
Tehlirian’s act as “morally right” but 
“legally wrong” and should have 

convicted him of manslaughter 
(Alexander 1991:201). Or it is possible 
that the court acknowledged that States 
failed to rectify wrongdoings, making it 
understandable for individuals to pursue 
their own justice. In fact, some law 
breaking has become “conventional” like 
“homicide and assault” because it is 
“sometimes driven by a moralistic 
impulse, aimed at avenging some 
injustice or pursuing some notion of 
justice” (Friedrichs 2006:72). Tehlirian’s 
taking justice in his own hands with 
neglect to formal legal procedures is an 
example of vigilante justice but was 
Tehlirian a vigilante or a terrorist? 
(Friedrichs 2006:236). Although 
Tehlirian received aid from ARF and 
completed an assassination assignment 
for Operation Nemesis, the assassination 
of Talat was motivated by different 
means: “executing the deed [was] for his 
own sake rather than for any political 
program” (Alexander 1991:200). 
Tehlirian “was not a soldier in an 
ideological cause, nor fighting for 
territorial integrity, nor was he the agent 
of a political faction;” he was a son and 
a brother motivated by vengeance 
(Alexander 1991:200). Although ARF 
used him to achieve their ends, Tehlirian 
used ARF to achieve his own ends.  
     “Political assassinations have long 
been justified as a form of alternative 
justice,” partly because some terrorist 
acts are viewed as a “necessary response 
to existing injustice” that may bring 
about change (Friedrichs 2006:72). But 
who is to say that that “change” will 
bring out the better or worse? Even 
though Tehlirian purposely killed a man 
responsible for killing innocent people 
haphazardly, do two wrongs make a 
right? Perhaps the fact that political 



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assassinations continued after 
Tehlirian’s acquittal answers this 
question negatively, for his exoneration 
may have encouraged others to terrorize 
and attack Turkish representatives and 
institutions.  
     For instance, by 1975, two Armenian 
organizations resurrected Armenian 
terrorism. This terrorism “lasted for ten 
years, involved twenty countries and 
close to two hundred incidents” and 
twenty-two deaths of Turkish diplomats 
(Alexander 1991:194).   For example, 
the Justice Commandos of the Armenian 
Genocide assassinated the Turkish 
ambassador in Vienna on October 22, 
1975, followed by the assassination of 
the Turkish ambassador in Paris just two 
months later. Another terrorist group 
called the Armenian Secret Army for the 
Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) 
bombed the offices of Turkish Airlines 
in Paris on November 13, 1979. Then on 
September 24, 1981, the ASALA 
“seized the Turkish consulate and held 
twenty hostages, eventually killing one 
and wounding three” (Alexander 
1991:194). In an attempt to kill another 
Turkish ambassador, the ASALA took 
hold of the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa 
in April 1985 which resulted in the 
ambassador’s escape after he jumped out 
of a two-story building. All together, 
these terrorist groups sought justice with 
“attacks on Turkish diplomatic posts in 
Vienna, Beirut, Paris, Madrid, The 
Hague, Athens, the Vatican, as well as 
bombings of Turkish cultural attractions 
and business establishments” (Alexander 
1991:194). 
     These terrorist acts cannot be deemed 
as acts of justice but rather acts of 
vengeance, for “finding punishment that 
fits the crime without repeating it is a 

task not fit for” just any citizen without 
legal backing (Shriver 2001:9). Thus, if 
“legal institutions are hedges against 
both vengeance and impunity,” what 
were the Justice Commandos of the 
Armenian Genocide and the ASALA 
trying to accomplish, if they could at all 
accomplish anything aside from their 
own sense of revenge (Shriver 2001:9)? 
Perhaps the only positive outcome from 
these unjust initiatives was bringing 
historic atrocities to light. Though the 
public may not agree with the methods 
that the Justice Commandos of the 
Armenian Genocide and the ASALA 
used to create attention for their cause, 
they may be interested and, better yet, 
supportive of the cause itself. 
 
Conclusion: Human Capital versus 
Material Capital 

I believe that we all possess an 
intuitive sense of justice. We want things 
to be fair and wrongs to be made right 
with some kind of compensation. I 
would like to believe that we are all 
compelled by a collective conscience 
and a moral obligation. That is, we are 
ideally conditioned by society to choose 
what is truly good over bad, empathy 
over apathy and benevolence over 
malevolence. “Doing the right thing” is 
an idealized and widespread tradition 
that has become the U.S.’s reputation 
and it is an image that the U.S. tries to 
put forth. It is arguable if the U.S. fits 
this role or not, but the controversy does 
not eliminate the expectation for the U.S. 
to represent the ultimate humanitarian 
and be the example of righteousness for 
the whole world. The U.S. is burdened 
by the principle “you’re damned if you 
do, but damned if you don’t” and 
receives incessant criticism either way. 



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The U.S. is often criticized for meddling 
in others’ affairs but, at the same time, 
the U.S. is often blamed for choosing 
inaction when something goes awry. 

However, “getting involved” often 
means sacrificing special interests. The 
preservation of any nation relies on 
maintaining political, economic and 
military advantages. Sometimes one goal 
needs to be sacrificed in order to 
advance another. Dominant groups in 
society analyze costs and benefits and 
often the result is at the expense of a 
humanitarian endeavor.  

In the case of the Armenian 
Genocide, the U.S. had little to gain and 
a lot to lose. The wake of World War II 
left the world in a state of political 
tension known as the Cold War. A 
competition of ideologies and military 
and economic expansion divided the 
world “into the camps of the two super 
powers, the Soviet Union and the United 
States” (Papazian 1986). Since the U.S. 
saw Turkey as a “source of raw 
materials and a field for investment,” 
Turkey became a member of NATO in 
1952 (Papazian 1986). Turkey offered 
political capital for the West in the forms 
of oil fields and strategic military access 
in the Middle East (Balakian 2003:365). 
Therefore, it is easy to understand why 
“humanitarian concerns would take a 
backseat to material and military 
national self-interest” (Balakian 
2003:365).  
     Turkey had much to gain from this 
partnering as well: with the U.S. 
stepping in as “Turkey’s patron and 
defender,” they would replace Great 
Britain, who periodically demanded that 
Turkey reform itself (Papazian 1986). 
Instead, Turkey had the political pull on 
the U.S. to silence such demands. In 

order to protect U.S. interests, the U.S. 
would relent just as long as Turkey 
cooperated in the fight against 
communism, which was the U.S.’s top 
political priority, and provided natural 
resources, which was U.S.’s top business 
pursuit.  
     Even before World War II and the 
Cold War, Turkey had a way of 
employing their political pull over the 
U.S. to protect their interests. For 
example, in 1934, MGM bought the film 
rights to Franz Werfel’s best-selling 
novel entitled The Forty Days of Musa 
Dagh. The true story detailed the heroic 
Armenians of a mountain town called 
Musa Dagh, which resisted Turkish 
invasion in 1915 (Balakian 2003:376). 
Munir Ertegun, the Turkish Ambassador 
to the United States, halted production 
with the threat that the release of the film 
would insult the alliance between 
Turkey and the United States, resulting 
in a boycott of American films (Balakian 
2003:377). Despite contradicting a 
constitutional freedom explicated in the 
Bill of Rights that protects artistic 
expression, the project was dropped to 
prevent damaging the relationship 
between the two nations. This example 
demonstrates how political interests and 
economic endeavors can coincide to 
surpass the law and inherent human 
rights. Although one may call this 
arrangement a compromise between two 
nations, another may call it blackmail. 
Turkey’s interest in hindering the 
remembrance of the genocide provoked 
them to blackmail the U.S. by forcing 
them to censor the media. The United 
States in turn gave in to Turkey’s 
demands to secure not only their alliance 
but also profits in the American film 
industry. In this way, politics and 



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business trump both a lawfully 
guaranteed freedom and an attempt to 
bring attention to an injustice in the 
quest for justice.   
     Even in today’s current affairs, 
political and economic interests 
supersede humanitarian interests. On 
October 10, 2009, a landmark agreement 
was signed “to establish diplomatic 
relations between Turkey and Armenia 
and to open the joint border, which was 
sealed after the 1993 Armenian invasion 
of Nagorno-Karabakh” (Fraser 2009). 
The future for this Azerbaijani territory, 
which is occupied by Armenian troops, 
is troubling for both sides. However, this 
does not seem to be of any concern to 
the mediators of the accord, including 
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 
Originally, the signing of the accord was 
delayed by “a dispute over the 
statements the countries would make” 
afterwards (Fraser 2009). However, 
Clinton persuaded Turkish and 
Armenian foreign ministers to proceed, 
for she emphasized that it was 
“important to just approve the accord 
and not have the sides make speeches 
that could be interpreted as putting legal 
conditions on the document” (Lee 2009).  
     Yet denying any politician’s 
opportunity to display their linguistic 
talents, especially when expressing their 
principles are pivotal to the matters 
involved, contradicts the process of 
politics. After all, politicians are known 
for their press conferences and public 
statements to influence the world 
audience. Clinton’s persistence suggests 
that something greater was at stake. In 
fact, the approval “could reduce tensions 
in the troubled Caucasus region and 
facilitate its growing role as a corridor 

for energy supplies bound for the West” 
(Lee 2009).  
     Though the West may gain an 
advantage, the two nations directly 
involved may suffer   consequences from 
their own people. “Nationalists on both 
sides are still seeking to derail 
implementation of the deal,” for the 
document represents a giving in and a 
giving up (Lee 2009). On the side of 
Turkish nationalists, the accord does not 
order Armenia to withdraw its troops 
from the enclave in Azerbaijan, which is 
land that Turkey is trying to retrieve on 
behalf of Azerbaijan, with whom they 
share cultural ties. As a response to the 
invasion, Turkey shut its border with 
Armenia (Lee 2009). “Turkey wants 
Armenia to withdraw some troops from 
the enclave area to show good will and 
speed for the opening of the border” but 
Armenia has not agreed (Fraser 2009).  
On the other hand, Armenia’s resistance 
is rooted in Turkey’s continuous denial 
of the Armenian Genocide. Although the 
agreement opens the door to discussing 
the killing of about 1.5 million 
Armenians during World War I, with 
“an impartial scientific examination of 
the historical records and archives to 
define existing problems and formulate 
recommendations,” the accord illustrates 
Turkey’s prowess in avoiding 
unreserved acknowledgment (Lee 2009). 
Thus, the agreement exemplifies the 
nation’s backing down from their 
principles: Armenia’s escape from 
withdrawing from Azerbaijan is Turkey 
giving into Armenia’s invasion and 
Turkey’s escape from acknowledging 
the genocide is Armenia giving up on 
seeking justice. If both nations were true 
to their principles, politics would not 
interfere with their national endeavors 



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and the signing would not have 
occurred.  
     Nonetheless, this historic accord 
demonstrates how special interests take 
precedence over any matter just as long 
as there is more to gain than lose. This 
example also shows that material capital 
is more valuable than principles. In 
retrospect, we can answer the question 
of why the U.S. did not get involved 
during WWI or even after the Armenian 
Genocide. U.S. Ambassador Henry 
Morgenthau makes it impossible for the 
U.S. to claim that they did not know 
what was going on, with all his reports 
of what the Turkish government 
imposed on the Armenians and his 
documented pleas to both the American 
and Turkish governments for 
intervention (Akcam 2006:105,155).  
Then there is Lemkin, who relentlessly 
created genocide awareness after the war 
in diplomatic and legal arenas through 
his campaign for an international ban on 
genocide.  
     It is not that the U.S. did not read 
Morgenthau’s memoirs or that the U.S. 
did not hear Lemkin’s petition. It was all 
a matter of preparedness and willingness 
to invest the diplomatic, financial and 
military capital needed to stop genocide 
as it occurred and to rectify it afterwards. 
This was a choice, a choice made with 
careful consideration of the costs and 
benefits of getting involved in another’s 
affairs. Unfortunately for the Armenians, 
the stigma of neglect was less expensive 
than the costs to intervene.  Additionally, 

up until now, redemption for the U.S. 
and Turkey is still costly: if the U.S. 
were to press Turkey for accountability, 
they would jeopardize a military 
alliance, for the U.S. has air bases 
stationed in Turkey, and a profitable 
business relationship, for Turkey 
supplies the U.S. natural resources; if 
Turkey acknowledged that what befell 
the Armenians was genocide, then the 
admission would open the door for not 
only the burden of blame but for 
compensation. These expensive 
consequences may withhold justice for 
the Armenians even longer—or just as 
long as money and power remain 
important forces of society—in which 
case it may be forever. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 



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