Larry May Genocide A Normative Account Summary

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Introduction: Problems of Genocide
May lays out the puzzles that motivate the book: how to identify “groups” for genocide law; why only certain groups are protected; what the distinctive harm of genocide is (beyond mass killing); how individual criminal liability works for a collective crime; and how intent should be proved—illustrated with Rwanda case law. He previews his overall view: the special harm centers on the destruction of group members’ identity/status, and several areas of international law likely need refinement.

Chapter 2. Nominalism and the Constituents of Groups
May develops a broadly nominalist account: groups don’t exist as independent entities over and above their members and the relations/institutions that bind them. Drawing on Ockham and Hobbes, he treats groups as socially constructed but still morally salient. This frames later arguments: if groups aren’t metaphysical “things,” genocide’s wrong must be cashed out via harms to persons as members.

Chapter 3. Identifying Groups in Genocide Cases
Using the Darfur Commission of Inquiry, May asks how courts should decide what counts as a protected group. He critiques narrow approaches and explores criteria such as self-identification, ascriptive labeling by perpetrators, relative stability, and social salience. He also suggests modest expansion or interpretation of “protected groups.”

Chapter 4. Harm to a Group Itself
Can a group, as a group, be harmed or hold rights like a “right to life”? May engages Arendt on statelessness and assesses “rights of groups” versus “rights in groups.” Consistent with his nominalism, he is cautious about robust group-rights metaphysics, setting up his shift to harms borne by individuals through their group membership.

Chapter 5. Harms to Identity and Status of a Group’s Members
This is the book’s centerpiece: the distinctive harm of genocide is primarily the destruction of members’ social identity and status—“social death.” May contrasts genocide with persecution and uses the Holocaust to illustrate how membership-linked identity is targeted. This identity/status account explains why genocide can be uniquely wrongful even apart from body counts.

Chapter 6. Genocidal Acts: Destroying Groups “in Whole or in Part”
May analyzes the actus reus: killings, serious bodily/mental harm, conditions of life calculated to bring about destruction, preventing births, transferring children. He discusses controversial edges—cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing—and considers whether and how they fit the legal template of “destruction.”

Chapter 7. Collective and Individual Intent
Genocide’s dolus specialis (special intent) is notoriously hard to prove. May unpacks kinds of collective intent (plans, policies, patterns) and links them to individual mens rea. He argues knowledge- or policy-based inferences can help bridge the gap between collective projects and individual liability, and he proposes refinements to the mental element doctrine.

Chapter 8. Motive and Destruction of a Group “As Such”
What does it mean to destroy a group “as such”? May distinguishes motive from intent and argues that while personal motives vary, the legal focus should be on whether acts target victims because of their group membership (the “as such” criterion). He also considers whether motives should ever aggravate punishment.

Chapter 9. Complicity and the Rwandan Genocide
May surveys modes of liability (aiding/abetting, joint criminal enterprise, etc.), tests them against hard Rwandan cases, and sketches a theory of legal complicity that marks the line between legal and moral complicity. He links doctrines to practical adjudication in Rwanda.

Chapter 10. Incitement to Genocide and the Rwanda “Media Case”
Focusing on the RTLM/press prosecutions, May treats direct and public incitement as an inchoate offense: liability attaches even if genocide does not occur, because speech can orchestrate identity destruction. He analyzes jurisprudence, superior responsibility, and the special dangers of media-driven incitement.

Chapter 11. Instigating, Planning, and Intending Genocide in Rwanda
May parses “instigation” (its strong and weaker forms), planning (and the possibility of genocide without a detailed master plan), and intent proof via patterns of violence. He uses Akayesu to show how tribunals extracted intent from conduct, context, and leadership roles.

Chapter 12. Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention
May weighs the ethics and law of forcible intervention to stop or prevent genocide. Using Rwanda as a test case, he offers a limited defense of humanitarian intervention under constrained conditions (necessity, proportionality, reasonable prospects), while acknowledging risks and potential abuses.

Chapter 13. Reconciliation, Criminal Trials, and Genocide
Finally, May asks how societies return to a rule-of-law order after genocide. He balances retributive trials with truth and reconciliation aims, discusses bystanders’ and communities’ shared responsibility, and evaluates Rwanda’s gacaca alongside formal trials, including how complicity is acknowledged in post-atrocity justice.