Editing Genocide (section)

=== Prosecutions ===
{{Undue weight section|date=January 2025|events in Iraq}}
[[File:ICTY - Court room 1 in session.jpg|thumb|[[International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia]] in session]]
During the [[Cold War]], genocide remained at the level of rhetoric because both [[superpower]]s (the United States and the Soviet Union) felt vulnerable to accusations of genocide and were therefore unwilling to press charges against the other party.{{sfn|Weiss-Wendt|2017|p=9}} Despite political pressure to charge "Soviet genocide", the United States government refused to ratify the convention, fearing [[We Charge Genocide|countercharges]].{{sfn|Weiss-Wendt|2017|p=266}} Authorities have been reluctant to prosecute the perpetrators of many genocides, although non-judicial commissions of inquiry have also been created by some states.{{sfn|Stone|2013|p=150}}

[[International court]]s have found a small number of events as constituting genocide, such as the [[Rwandan genocide]] and the [[Srebrenica genocide]].{{sfn|UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect|n.d.|p=2}} 

On 25 January 2010, Iraqi official [[Ali Hassan al-Majid#Trial and execution|Ali Hassan al-Majid]] (1st cousin of [[Saddam Hussein]]) was executed by hanging after being convicted of committing genocide by using chemical weapons against Iraq's Kurdish population during the 1997–1998 Al-Anfal campaign. Al-Majid was captured following the [[2003 invasion of Iraq]]. During the trial, the Iraqi court heard tape-recorded conversations between al-Majid and senior Ba'ath party officials regarding the use of chemical weapons: "I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them." In the recordings, Al-Majid calls the Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani "wicked and a pimp", and promises not to leave alive anyone who speaks the Kurdish language.<ref>[https://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/08/14/genocide-iraq-anfal-campaign-against-kurds "The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds"]. A Middle East Watch Report: [[Human Rights Watch]] 1993.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Saddam Hussein's henchman 'Chemical Ali' executed |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/7072155/Saddam-Husseins-henchman-Chemical-Ali-executed.html |access-date=2 September 2021 |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |date=25 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250108211035/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/7072155/Saddam-Husseins-henchman-Chemical-Ali-executed.html |archive-date=8 January 2025}}</ref><ref>"[https://www.hrw.org/campaigns/iraq/chemicalali.htm Chemical Ali in his own words]", [[Human Rights Watch]]. Retrieved 24 June 2007</ref>

The first head of state to be convicted of genocide was in 2018 for the [[Cambodian genocide]].{{sfn|Kiernan|2023|p=2}}

Although it is widely recognized that punishment of the perpetrators cannot be of an order with their crimes, the trials often serve other purposes such as attempting to shape public perception of the past.{{sfn|Stone|2013|p=150}}