The Armenian “Genocide” Recognition Battle: Assessment and Outlook to Overcome the Current Deadlock

It is submitted that the international efforts of Armenians for the genocide recognition failed in essence for two reasons. First, the recognitions obtained have no legal consequence. Second, there is confusion between historical and factual truth and the legal qualification of facts and its consequences. The Armenian and Jew experiences are not genocides in the light of international law. This provoking assertion is a reality that States and the international law community know well. The battle for recognition of genocide by Turkey is a wrong path since, fuelled by nationalist ideologies, they refuse this qualification. It is suggested that Armenians must decide if their objective is to make recognize the “genocide” or get reparation. A reparation process may result in the recognition of facts without necessarily result in the recognition of its legal responsibility by Turkey. Based on the PhD research and dissertation of the applicant and its long practice of the Armenian Case, the paper intends to expose what reparation means in the light of international law, why the genocide legal basis is a wrong legal path to obtain justice, and how Armenians could structure their claims and what kind of reparation measures they may expect. The paper will look at the Armenian case through a broader comparative analysis of most recent and sometimes ongoing reparation processes in relation with historical injustices. The reparation of prejudices linked to historical mass crimes is benefiting from renewed interest in many countries. The deterioration of international relations reinforces the need to tell the truth, to put an end to psychological suffering and to remedy the exclusionary policies and practices which have led to these crimes and which perpetuate the denial of justice. Actually, the elapsed time since the events is always pointed as being the key obstacle to a judicial settlement. In reality, there exist legal bases to establish the legal wrongfulness of the original acts. The real challenges are else: they are the legal standing of the claimants and the certainty of their prejudices in relation with the initial wrongdoings. To overcome those challenges, it is argued that the denial of justice suffered by the descendants of direct victims is a compound wrongful act, i.e. the last element of a systematic repetition of actions or omissions against the same ethnic groups. Racial discrimination elucidates the link between these successive acts and the denial of justice: it is both the aggravating circumstance of the facts and the legal basis of the link between the original crimes and the current harms. A transitive causality is thus established. Reparation is due but must, however, respect the rules of intertemporal law: the prejudices are only reparable from the date of consolidation in international law of norms protecting the right to an effective remedy and forbidding racial discrimination. Comparative experiences confirm that the political settlement of historical injustices is the only effective option, but to reach it legal action from the descendants of victims is a prerequisite.