Shannon Fyfe Publishes Article Challenging the Role of Genocide Law in Preventing Mass Atrocities New Loyola University Chicago Law Journal article argues that debates over whether violence constitutes genocide often distract from the need to end violence.

By Law Communications
August 4, 2026

Washington and Lee University law professor Shannon Fyfe has published a new article in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. The article, titled “The Futility of ‘Genocide’ in Ending a Genocide,” examines whether international law’s treatment of genocide has fulfilled the promise envisioned when the Genocide Convention was adopted after World War II.

The 1948 Genocide Convention established legal obligations for nations to prevent and punish genocide in the hope that international law would help stop future atrocities. Fyfe argues that, despite decades of legal development in international courts and tribunals, invoking the term “genocide” has too often failed to mobilize the international community to intervene and prevent ongoing mass violence.

Drawing on scholarship in both international law and genocide studies, Fyfe challenges the belief that genocide occupies a unique place as the “crime of crimes.” She argues that debates over whether particular atrocities legally qualify as genocide do little to inspire timely international action.

“Both the phenomenon of genocide, an instance of genocide in which a protected group is targeted for destruction, and the crime of genocide, where an individual perpetrator acts with the requisite intent to meet the elements of the crime, involve the idea that the atrocities and the perpetrators are ‘the worst of the worst.’ However, as I claim, the hierarchical intuition is unjustified, and it has not led legal and political institutions tasked with assessing genocide claims to inspire the international community to stop an ongoing genocide. Further, I argue that we should not rely on these legal institutions, especially not criminal legal systems, to prevent and punish the grave suffering and wrongdoing of a genocide,” writes Fyfe.

Professor Fyfe’s primary areas of research are in legal philosophy and feminist ethics, especially related to international conflict, criminal law, and accountability. She holds both a Ph.D. in philosophy and a J.D. from Vanderbilt University.

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