Gender Groups and the Genocide Convention's Protected Groups

Abstract: This thesis explores the crime of genocide in connectivity to ‘gendercides’. Its aim is to investigate whether including gender groups as a protected group in the Genocide Convention is theoretically plausible. Drawing from feminist legal theory, the thesis begins by probing the historical origins of the concept of genocide and critically approaching the criminal elements of genocide. This exposition emanates into an analytical examination of the rationale of protecting human groups in ICL. Against this background, the thesis advocates an understanding of the crime of genocide as a rights-implementing institute. Subsequently, it employs an ejusdem generis analysis to assess whether gender groups are coherent with the current canon of the protected groups, and if similar treatment thereby can be motivated. It then turns to examine other international law instruments, to expose that none of these are suitable proxies in dealing with ‘gendercides’. In answer to this ‘legal reality’, the thesis examines the conceptual underpinnings of international criminal regulation, to explicate that ‘gendercides’ fit this theoretical frame, using the ‘Indian gendercide’ as an illustrative setting. From this perspective, the thesis suggests that the content of the crime of genocide is not determinate, but rather emerges as a battlefield for hegemonic interests. Therefore, it is argued, the current construction of the protected groups in the Genocide Convention in the way it relates to gender groups reflects a deliberate choice. The thesis concludes with asserting that this ‘choice’ represents a lacuna in ICL, that in the long run compromises the legitimacy of the crime of genocide, since the personal scope of the crime of genocide risks being in discord with current social and political trajectories.