YERREVAN. – Any reasonable adjudication of a crime requires also recognition of the rights of the victims concerning their losses and suffering.
President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan on Saturday noted the aforesaid in his opening address at the second Global Forum Against the Crime of Genocide, which has kicked off in capital city Yerevan.
“The general heading for this year’s conference is ‘Living Witnesses of Genocide’ that allows us to uncover the issues of outmost importance related both to addressing the consequences of genocide and its prevention,” the President said. “Today, unfortunately, the humankind still lacks humanness. It is demonstrated by the wave of denial by the genocide perpetrators and their successors. It was rightly noted by the Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel that to deny would be akin to killing victims a second time. In some instances denial is expressed through violation of the right to remembrance and awareness. Denial imposes constant feeling of fear unto the survivors and their successors since those who deny or justify what had happened do not directly exclude the possibility of recurrence of that very same crime should there be appropriate conditions for that.
“Meanwhile, I believe that the international legal documents related to the crime of genocide do not pay due attention to the international legal regulation of the issues related to the genocide survivors. The same is also true for the international legal regime related to the refugees. It is critical to understand how to define a special legal status for survivors of genocide and other crimes against humanity through the improvement of the existing legal mechanisms or introduction of new legal norms; otherwise, perhaps, it would be impossible to comprehensively approach this issue.
“Any reasonable adjudication of a crime requires also recognition of the rights of the victims concerning their losses and suffering. Certainly, it is also true for the survivors of genocide and other crimes against humanity. Necessary mechanisms should be installed, which will allow both recognizing that right and implementing it.”
The second Global Forum Against the Crime of Genocide has brought together representatives from governments and parliaments, major international and human rights organizations, renowned experts of international law, members of the media, and numerous other interested persons.
The attendees include renowned actor, filmmaker and philanthropist George Clooney; The Washington Post editor and reviewer David Ignatius; and co-founder of 100 LIVES and the Aurora Prize and president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, businessmen and prominent philanthropists Vartan Gregorian.
