International Association of Genocide Scholars

The International Association of Genocide Scholars

Abbreviation	IAGS
Established	1994
Website	genocidescholars.org

The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) is an international non-partisan organization that seeks to further research and teaching about the nature, causes, and consequences of genocide. The IAGS also advances policy studies on the prevention of genocide. The official peer-reviewed academic journal of the association is called Genocide Studies and Prevention. IAGS was the largest organization of scholars studying genocide and crimes against humanity in the mid-2010s, with 500 members as of 2015.

Resolutions and statements

The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) issues formal positions either through its executive board, advisory board, or via resolutions passed by participating members. A resolution on a public issue passes only if over two-thirds of voters approve and more than 20% of members take part in the vote. According to Emily Sample, the association's communications officer, town hall discussions are not required by the association's bylaws. The resolutions passed by the IAGS reflect the association's scholarly assessments on genocide, mass atrocities, and denialism. The IAGS has passed resolutions and issued board statements addressing genocidal crimes and related matters in the following cases:

• Genocidal actions by Azerbaijan – including a siege and offensive – against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Additional statements include a condemnation and a statement on Azerbaijani aggression against Armenia (October 2022).
• The Armenian Genocide under the Ottoman Empire. The IAGS has also issued an open letter to Turkish state authorities in 2005 condemning denial, and a 2006 open letter to others who deny the genocide. In 2007, the IAGS executive board submitted a letter to the United States Congress in support of a resolution recognizing the genocide.
• The genocide of the Kurds in Iraq, particularly the Anfal campaign
• The 1971 Bangladesh genocide during the war of independence. Out of 626 members, 218 (35%) took part in the voting. Of these 208 approved the resolution, four rejected it and six abstained from voting.
• State-led atrocities against the Uyghurs in China
• Mass violence and displacement targeting the Rohingya in Myanmar. In 2022, the executive board condemned the banning of an IAGS member's scholarly work in Myanmar.
• Mass atrocities committed during the Syrian Civil War
• Genocide of Assyrians and Greeks during the late Ottoman period
• Denial of the Holocaust by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• The Darfur genocide in western Sudan (June 2005)
• Crimes committed by ISIS against religious and ethnic minorities, including the Yazidis
• Political violence and repression in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe
• The situation in Ukraine following the 2022 Russian invasion has also been addressed by the IAGS executive board.
• Israel's policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide (see Gaza genocide). Out of its 500 members, 28% took part in the vote and 86% of those who voted supported the resolution.

History

The origins of the IAGS go back to the early 1980s. At this time, a small group of scholars and teachers were using a comparative framework to study genocide. Leo Kuper published his seminal book Genocide in 1980 and Helen Fein published Accounting for Genocide in 1979.

Israel Charny organized the first conference on the comparative analysis of genocide in Jerusalem in 1982.  The Institute for the Study of Genocide was founded in New York in 1982 by Helen Fein. Gregory Stanton founded The Cambodian Genocide Project in 1982 to bring Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. It became part of Genocide Watch in 1999.

These early genocide scholars, a number of whom began with study of the Holocaust, were attacked by other scholars who insisted on the "uniqueness" of the Holocaust.

The pioneers in genocide studies also confronted institutional pressures. For example, it was a challenge to get platforms in traditional conferences such as the American Historical Association, the International Studies Association, the American Sociological Association, etc.

Traditional academic disciplines did not find room for the interdisciplinary nature of genocide studies, so universities seldom had faculty positions for genocide scholars.

However, what had been a marginalized area of study became one of urgent interest and scholarship as a response to the genocides in Rwanda and the Balkans in 1994 and 1995.

Genocide Scholars-IAGS Visitors Walk Past Memorial Sign – Olimpo Detention and Torture Center, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Association of Genocide Scholars

The idea for an organization of genocide scholars grew out of a meeting between Israel Charny, Helen Fein, Robert Melson and Roger Smith at the Remembering for the Future Two conference, held at Humboldt University in Berlin in 1994. With over 500 persons in attendance and numerous panels and presentations, there was only one three-hour session on the comparative study of genocide. Hence, there was discussion of the need to create an organization that focused on the study and prevention of genocide.

The Association of Genocide Scholars (AGS) was established in 1994.  During this initial period, the AGS shared a website and affiliation with the Institute for the Study of Genocide.

The organization's first conference was held in 1995 at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, US, with about 45 persons attending. Helen Fein served as the association's first President.

Subsequent biennial conferences were held at Concordia University (Montreal) in 1997, the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1999, and the University of Minnesota in 2001.

With the rapid growth and global interest in genocide studies, a number of scholars pushed for a more international perspective and argued that conferences should be held outside North America. The organization revised its by-laws in 2001 and was renamed the International Association of Genocide Scholars. The revised bylaws provided that at least one officer be from outside North America, and that biennial conferences regularly be held outside North America.

The International Association of Genocide Scholars

The IAGS holds regular international conferences. The IAGS conference at the University of Galway, Ireland in 2003 was the first held outside North America. There were over 200 participants, with a significant increase in participation by European scholars. The increase also reflected growing scholarship in comparative genocide studies. In 2005, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, hosted the IAGS conference. Israel Charny was elected president.

In 2006, the IAGS, in partnership with the Zoryan Institute, an Armenian organization in Toronto, Canada, began publication of Genocide Studies and Prevention.  It became an on-line publication, free to all, in 2012. At that time, the Zoryan Institute withdrew its co-sponsorship of the IAGS Journal in favor of publishing its own journal.

In 2007, Gregory Stanton became President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.  Stanton incorporated the IAGS and obtained its non-profit status. The IAGS launched the organization's listserv and website and revised its bylaws. Its financial practices were reformed.

The 2007 IAGS biennial conference was held in Sarajevo, Bosnia.  It was the first IAGS conference to be held in a country that had recently experienced genocide, with major participation from genocide survivors in their own language.  Over 500 people attended the conference, including many participants from Bosnia, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The 2009 IAGS conference was held at George Mason University, Virginia, US.  

The association held its first conference in South America in 2011 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  It included over 300 participants, a significant number of whom were from Argentina and other Latin American countries. The 2013 IAGS conference was held in Siena, Italy. In 2014 the IAGS held a mid-term conference at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.  It was the first conference to focus on the genocide of Aboriginal Americans.  It included sessions with these First Peoples on their own land.

The 2015 IAGS Biennial Meeting held in Yerevan, Armenia, focused on the Armenian genocide. The 2017 conference in Brisbane, Australia, focused on the genocide of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. The 2019 IAGS conference was held in Cambodia.  It focused on the Cambodian genocide and other Asian genocides and included significant participation from Cambodians.  It was the first IAGS conference held in Asia.

The 2021 IAGS conference

According to the IAGS, its origin is based on the scholars who studied genocide in the 1980s including Helen Fein who published "Accounting for Genocide" in 1979 and Leo Kuper who published "Genocide" in 1982, and a genocide conference organised by Israel Charny in Jerusalem in 1982. The IAGS itself was created in 1994, initially with the name Association of Genocide Scholars and holding biennial conferences in the United States and Canada. In 2001, the name was changed to International Association of Genocide Scholars along with a change in the bylaws requiring at least one officer to be from outside of North America, and that the biennial conferences be "regularly" held outside of North America. The original group of scholars was small, with the first conference, held in June 1995 at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia in the US, taking place in a single room with about fifty participants. According to Jack Nusan Porter, the Williamsburg conference included Porter reading a paper by his colleague Steven T. Katz that led to major controversy at the meeting about whether the Holocaust was "the only 'true' genocide".

According to Porter, IAGS finances were managed "carelessly" prior to Porter becoming the treasurer in 2007 and Greg Stanton becoming president of the IAGS, which led to the financial management returning to "a firm footing". During Stanton's presidency, IAGS leaders visited Erbil to prepare a conference in Brussels on the Anfal campaign, a massacre of Kurds in Iraq under Saddam Hussein that Porter views as a genocide.

A parallel genocide researchers' association, the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS), was created in 2005. Jack Nusan Porter describes INoGS as a split from the IAGS, mainly by European researchers, for two reasons: the researchers who created INoGS viewed IAGS as concentrating too much on declarations rather than research; and a public conflict occurred between Israel Charny and Martin Shaw over the assessment of Israel's role in the Deir Yassin massacre and its occupation of Palestinian territories. Charny described the creation of INoGS as occurring independently of IAGS, stating, "There was no prior collaboration with IAGS about the development of INOGS."

Another publishing split occurred with the creation of the journal Genocide Studies International, in association with the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights at the Zoryan Institute

All IAGS conferences after 2011 were held outside the US. Conferences held outside of North America include the 2015 conference held in Yerevan, Armenia, on the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide and the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War II and the Holocaust, and the 2017 conference held in Brisbane, Australia. The IAGS held a virtual conference in 2021 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was hosted by the University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It focused on the risks of conflicts and genocide that may be related to environmental destruction, climate change, and the world's population explosion.

The 2023 IAGS conference was scheduled to be held in person and virtually at the University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre is scheduled to host the 2025 IAGS conference in October 2025.

Structure and membership

Jack Nusan Porter stated that the early membership of IAGS, during 1994–2007, was "mostly Jewish and Armenian, with some Israelis, and, of course, mostly male and all white." By 2023, according to Porter, IAGS had become "fully international and no longer American or European-centred", with "all conferences since 2011 [held] outside the USA."

As of 2025, IAGS describes its members as including "academic scholars, human rights activists, students, museum and memorial professionals, policymakers, educators, anthropologists, independent scholars, sociologists, artists, political scientists, economists, historians, international law scholars, psychologists, and literature and film scholars".

Founders and presidents

The four main founders of IAGS were Helen Fein, Israel Charny, Robert Melson, and Roger W. Smith, all four who have been president of IAGS. Reverse chronologically, the presidents have been:

• Melanie O'Brien (2021–present)
• Henry Theriault (2017–2021)
• Andrew Woolford (2015–2017)
• Daniel Feierstein (2013–2015)
• Alexander Hinton (2011–2013)
• William Schabas (2009–2011)
• Gregory H. Stanton (2007–2009)
• Israel W. Charny (2005–2007)
• Robert Melson (2003–2005)
• Joyce Apsel (2001–2003)
• Frank Chalk (1999–2001)
• Roger W. Smith (1997–1999)
• Helen Fein (1995–1997)

Notable people

• Janja Beč, Serbian-born sociologist, genocide researcher, writer and lecturer

See also

• Outline of genocide studies

External links

• Official website
• Genocide Studies and Prevention (journal website)
• Yale University Genocide Studies on Ponce de Leon