Deadly Rhythms: The Sonic Dimension of Incitement to Genocide in International Law

This article examines the role of music in the genocidal processes and explores its implications for the interpretation of incitement to genocide in international law. Although Article III(c) of the 1948 Genocide Convention classifies direct and public incitement as a separate offence, legal analysis has traditionally focused on explicit forms of discourse such as speeches, radio broadcasts or written propaganda, whilst the sonic dimension of mobilisation has received far less attention, despite its capacity to shape collective perception and emotional alignment. Using Gregory Stanton’s ten-stage model of genocidal processes as an analytical framework, this article examines, from a legal perspective, how musical practices can contribute to the communicative environments through which genocidal mobilisation develops. Through a comparative analysis of the Third Reich and the Rwandan genocide, as well as contemporary situations involving the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the study demonstrates that music can function not only as a cultural backdrop, but as a performative infrastructure of violence, capable of reinforcing processes of categorisation, discrimination, polarisation and persecution. From a legal perspective, the article argues that recognising the sonic dimension of propaganda does not require an extension of the legal definition of incitement but rather calls for a more context-sensitive interpretation of existing norms, attentive to the communicative environments in which narratives of incitement acquire meaning and mobilising power. In this sense, it is argued that genocide can become audible before it becomes legally visible, with sonic ecosystems of hate often constituting early warning signs that international law, if truly committed to prevention, cannot afford to ignore.