International Association of Genocide Scholars

The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) issues formal positions either through its executive board, advisory board, or via resolutions passed by participating members. A resolution on a public issue passes only if over two-thirds of voters approve and more than 20% of members take part in the vote. The usual range of votes received for a resolution falls between 25 and 34%. Meetings of resolution authors with the full membership are not required by the bylaws but are sometimes held. The resolutions passed by the IAGS reflect the association's scholarly assessments on genocide, mass atrocities, and denialism. The IAGS has passed resolutions and issued board statements addressing genocidal crimes and related matters in the following cases: • Genocidal actions by Azerbaijan – including a siege, military offensive, and forced expulsion – against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. Two additional statements condemned the ongoing Azerbaijani aggression against Armenia. • The Armenian Genocide under the Ottoman Empire. The IAGS issued an open letter to Turkish state authorities in 2005 and an open letter in 2006 to others who deny the genocide. In 2007, the IAGS executive board submitted a letter to the United States Congress in support of a resolution recognizing the genocide. • The genocide of the Kurds in Iraq, particularly the Anfal campaign • The Bangladesh genocide during the war of independence in 1971. Out of 626 members, 218 (35%) took part in the voting. Of these 208 approved the resolution, four rejected it and six abstained from voting. • State-led atrocities against the Uyghurs in China • Mass violence and displacement targeting the Rohingya in Myanmar. In 2022, the executive board condemned the banning of an IAGS member's scholarly work in Myanmar. • Mass atrocities committed during the Syrian Civil War • Genocide of Assyrians and Greeks during the late Ottoman period • Holocaust denial by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad • The Darfur genocide in western Sudan • Crimes committed by ISIS against religious and ethnic minorities, including the Yazidis, Christians, Shia Muslims, and Sunni Kurds • Political violence and repression in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe • The situation in Ukraine following the 2022 Russian invasion has also been addressed by the IAGS executive board. • Israel's policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide. Out of its 500 members, 28% took part in the vote and 86% of those who voted supported the resolution. == History ==

According to the IAGS, its origin is based on the scholars who studied genocide in the 1980s including Helen Fein who published "Accounting for Genocide" in 1979 and Leo Kuper who published "Genocide" in 1982, and a genocide conference organised by Israel Charny in Jerusalem in 1982. The IAGS itself was created in 1994, initially with the name Association of Genocide Scholars and holding biennial conferences in the United States and Canada. Another publishing split occurred with the creation of the journal Genocide Studies International, in association with the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights at the Zoryan Institute. Yerevan (2015), Barcelona (2023). IAGS conference was hosted by the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre in October 2025. Historically, the IAGS was criticized in the field who saw it as overly pro-Western and incorrect that robust military intervention by the West was a successful tactic to prevent genocide, as well as the implicit assumption that Western countries were not the perpetrators of genocide. Jürgen Zimmerer argued that instead of genocide being an aberration, perhaps "the world system is itself the root cause of genocide". A number of scholars, including Zimmerer, founded INoGS as an alternative to the IAGS. ==Structure and membership==

The IAGS describes its members as including "academic scholars, human rights activists, students, museum and memorial professionals, policymakers, educators, anthropologists, independent scholars, sociologists, artists, political scientists, economists, historians, international law scholars, psychologists, and literature and film scholars." Despite the wide range of professions represented, the IAGS stated in early September 2025 that its membership was still composed primarily of "scholars/academics from a wide range of disciplines". By 2023, according to Porter, IAGS had become "fully international and no longer American or European-centred", with "all conferences since 2011 [held] outside the USA." , IAGS had about 500 members. 280 in April 2024, and 440 on 1 September 2025. Founders and presidents The four main founders of IAGS were Helen Fein, Israel Charny, Robert Melson, and Roger W. Smith, • Henry Theriault (2017 ==See also==