Accusations of genocide have been made by both sides in the war in Ukraine. But the threshold for the crime is high, perhaps more than Russia or Ukraine can meet.
of King’s College London. In anticipation of this event, HRC Senior Researcher Alexandra Budabin sat down with Paul to learn more about his work and its application to the study and practice of advocacy.
Alexandra: Making sense of mass atrocity is an enormous but necessary task. What led you to focus your research on this issue, and how does your training in philosophy shape your work?
Paul: Like most researchers in this field, I can remember being shocked by images and narratives of historical atrocities during my childhood, as well as being exposed to events like the Rwandan genocide, which happened when I was nine. In college, I took courses in ethics, political philosophy and Holocaust studies, reading authors like Hannah Arendt, Theodore Adorno and Immanuel Kant. All of these authors are concerned, at some level, with the problem of grave human wrongdoing.