Ritmi letali. Quando note d'odio incitano al genocidio.

This article examines the relationship between music and genocide, arguing that sonic expression constitutes a performative infrastructure of violence capable of reinforcing each stage of Gregory Stanton’s eight-phase genocidal progression. Through a combined analysis of international criminal law and comparative musicology, the article demonstrates, drawing on the historical cases of the Third Reich and Rwanda, that music operates as a pre-juridical mechanism of identity construction, dehumanization, and collective mobilization that precedes and enables physical destruction. The paradigm is then tested against the ongo ing persecutions of the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, where the analysis exposes the structural limits of the 1948 Genocide Conven tion: its exclusion of cultural genocide, the demanding threshold of dolus spe cialis, and the directness requirement in incitement law render international law ill-equipped to capture genocidal intent when it manifests through iterative sonic practices or the deliberate silencing of minority traditions. The article con cludes that effective compliance with the preventive obligation under Article I of the Convention requires international law to develop a more attentive herme neutic, one capable of recognising not only what is said, but what is sung, and what is made to fall silent.