The Oxford Handbook on Atrocity Crimes

Book excerpt: "The Oxford Handbook on Atrocity Crimes consolidates and further develops the evolving field of atrocity studies by combining major mono-, inter-, and multi-disciplinary research on atrocity crimes in one volume encompassing contributions of leading scholars. Atrocity crimes-war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide-are manifestations of large scale and systematic criminality committed within specific political, ideological, and societal contexts. These crimes are committed by a multiplicity of actors against a large number of victims who suffer far-reaching consequences. Scholars studying mass atrocities are scattered not only across disciplines-such as international (criminal) law, international relations, criminology, political science, psychology, sociology, history, anthropology, or demography-but also across the topic-related fields, which are by definition multi- and interdisciplinary but are typically limited to a particular category or aspect of atrocity crimes. This Handbook brings together these strands of scholarship on (mass) atrocities and interrogates atrocity crimes as an overarching category of criminality, while simultaneously keeping an eye on differences among the individual constitutive categories. The Handbook covers topics related to the etiology and causes of atrocities, the actors involved, the harm and victims of atrocity crimes, the reactions to mass atrocities, and in-depth case studies of understudied situations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide"--