Book Review Brief: Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes (3rd ed.)

# What this book covers William A. Schabas's Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes (3rd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2025) is a comprehensive legal study of the concept of genocide and how international law has defined, limited, and prosecuted it. The reviewer, Emily Landriault (research librarian, Brian Dickson Law Library, University of Ottawa), emphasizes that the book is primarily about genocide in international law rather than being a catalogue of atrocities.

# Author background and approach

# Structure and reader experience The book contains extensive footnotes, a bibliography, an index, and an abbreviation list. Early chapters trace the coining of the term in the 1940s and the post–Nuremberg legal environment. The reviewer warns that dense sections on drafting and travaux préparatoires will be harder for non-jurists to digest, but she judges those sections essential to understanding the law's development and likely futures.

# Key legal issues examined

• Group categories: Chapter 4 interrogates each group named in the Convention and examines nuances in who is included or excluded, with historical and contemporary examples. The Canadian government's historic treatment of Indigenous Peoples is discussed as an example of ethnic cleansing that falls outside the Convention's specific definition.

• Acts of genocide and interpretation: Chapter 5 conducts a detailed statutory-interpretation exercise on the list of prohibited acts in the Convention. For each act, Schabas recounts drafting debates and states' positions to explain why drafters chose precise language.

• Other groups and UN practice: The book engages with references to "other groups," as used in a UN General Assembly resolution, and explains differences between that phrasing and the Convention text.

# Prosecutions and international practice Later chapters look at how genocide cases move through legal processes, including defenses and prosecutions. A new chapter in this edition focuses on prosecutions at the International Criminal Court, an institution that did not exist when the first edition was published. The third edition also updates material to include recent events in the Middle East and Europe.

# Tone and final assessment Schabas's closing remarks are cautiously optimistic about progress in international criminal law, while pointing out that attention and legal development have concentrated more on war crimes and crimes against humanity than on expanding the legal reach of genocide. He warns that casual use of "genocide" diminishes the term's gravity and expresses concern about proposals that favor prevention through force over less violent interventions.

Legal researchers, practitioners, and readers who want an in-depth, source-rich account of how the Genocide Convention was made and how its words continue to shape accountability. Non-jurists can gain a clear historical and doctrinal picture, but should expect dense legal drafting discussions in several chapters.