Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, with experience arguing on matters of genocide before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, wrote to the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education on May 2, 1996, saying, in part:
Clearly, during the years 1845 to 1850, the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, and racial group commonly known as the Irish People.
Professor Boyle's legal opinion concludes that Britain's actions violated sections (a), (b), and (c) of Article II, and therefore constituted acts of genocide against the Irish People.
On April 26th, 1849, one hundred years before the Genocide Convention was signed, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Earl of Clarendon, wrote to the Prime Minister, John Russell, expressing his feelings about the lack of aid from Parliament:
I do not think there is another legislature in Europe that would disregard such suffering as now exists in the west of Ireland, or coldly persist in a policy of extermination.
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