The West Papuan genocide: United Nations malfeasance and the failure of international law

The West Papuan genocide: United Nations malfeasance and the failure of international law

Julian King, a long-standing adviser to the West Papuan independence movement, argues that the UN Secretariat departed from its own Charter and decolonisation resolutions in the 1960s, and in doing so undermined the right of the people of what was then Netherlands New Guinea to self-determination and to their planned transition to independence.

Drawing on assessments by legal scholars, human rights organisations, intelligence agencies and UN bodies, King contends that West Papuans have been subjected to a sustained campaign that amounts to genocide, and by revisiting casualty estimates he attributes very large loss of life to Indonesia and the states that back it. He sets out the procedural routes that exist for bringing these breaches before UN organs and international courts, and documents how member states and UN bodies have declined to use them.

Because West Papuans have no standing under the UN Charter, and because the Secretariat and member states enjoy immunity, King concludes that there is no evident legal route to hold those responsible to account. He presents this as a wider failure of international law to protect human dignity. The full article is open access.

Full article

Read the full article on the Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity

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