Take Home Final Exam – Essay
HR-SOJE-260 – VA1
Dr. Pietro Pirani
December 13th, 2025
Human rights violations, especially genocide, extend beyond just those who are directly
affected. Holding perpetrators accountable for such heinous crimes comes with much
, uncertainty, as doing so is challenging from a national and international level. The limitations
include the scale of these crimes, the ambiguity of legal definitions, the limitations on
enforcement, the psychology of the perpetrators, and the historic significance of imperialism.
Naturally, crimes at greater magnitude must result in punishment and consequences reflecting the
severity of offences, but bringing culprits to justice has become increasingly tough despite
growing efforts to extensively punish violators and has resulted in minimal genocide prevention
in the past seventy years (Goodhart, Lesson 11, 154). This begs the question of why. In cases
where many who commit crimes against another are punished, it’s hard to comprehend how
those with intent of harming a substantial number of people struggle to be punished for such
actions. This essay aims to explore this question, and how despite the consensus, why it remains
challenging to prosecute those who attempt to commit heinous crimes.
When looking on the national level, one of the main reasons perpetrators of genocide are
difficult to bring to justice is the scale of the crime itself. Raphael Lemkin argued that genocide
is not only murder, but also actions that destroy the social, economic, cultural, religious, and
moral foundations of a group (Goodhart, Lesson 11, 155). This includes actions such as
sterilization, abortion, deliberate separation of families among others (Goodhart, Lesson 11,
156). With this, we can see how the scale of crimes hinders on a nation’s ability to seek justice,
and how courts struggle to investigate and prosecute these crimes, as they put significant strain
on domestic legal systems. The case of Rwanda exemplifies this, where the actions of Hutu
hardliners in the government and military caused the deaths of 500,000 to 800,000 individuals in
1994, and has since been considered as an unequivocal case of genocide. The scale of genocide
in a country with seven million people required Rwanda to rely on multiple justice systems
beyond its domestic courts. With the UN establishing the International Crime Tribunal for
HR-SOJE-260 – VA1
Dr. Pietro Pirani
December 13th, 2025
Human rights violations, especially genocide, extend beyond just those who are directly
affected. Holding perpetrators accountable for such heinous crimes comes with much
, uncertainty, as doing so is challenging from a national and international level. The limitations
include the scale of these crimes, the ambiguity of legal definitions, the limitations on
enforcement, the psychology of the perpetrators, and the historic significance of imperialism.
Naturally, crimes at greater magnitude must result in punishment and consequences reflecting the
severity of offences, but bringing culprits to justice has become increasingly tough despite
growing efforts to extensively punish violators and has resulted in minimal genocide prevention
in the past seventy years (Goodhart, Lesson 11, 154). This begs the question of why. In cases
where many who commit crimes against another are punished, it’s hard to comprehend how
those with intent of harming a substantial number of people struggle to be punished for such
actions. This essay aims to explore this question, and how despite the consensus, why it remains
challenging to prosecute those who attempt to commit heinous crimes.
When looking on the national level, one of the main reasons perpetrators of genocide are
difficult to bring to justice is the scale of the crime itself. Raphael Lemkin argued that genocide
is not only murder, but also actions that destroy the social, economic, cultural, religious, and
moral foundations of a group (Goodhart, Lesson 11, 155). This includes actions such as
sterilization, abortion, deliberate separation of families among others (Goodhart, Lesson 11,
156). With this, we can see how the scale of crimes hinders on a nation’s ability to seek justice,
and how courts struggle to investigate and prosecute these crimes, as they put significant strain
on domestic legal systems. The case of Rwanda exemplifies this, where the actions of Hutu
hardliners in the government and military caused the deaths of 500,000 to 800,000 individuals in
1994, and has since been considered as an unequivocal case of genocide. The scale of genocide
in a country with seven million people required Rwanda to rely on multiple justice systems
beyond its domestic courts. With the UN establishing the International Crime Tribunal for
