The following constitutes a working definition of genocide that I developed for thesis work I have done on the topic. This will be my rudimentary definition and something I hope to flush out further in this blog. I would value your input and opinions!
First genocide defined under the United Nations’ definition in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
· (a) Killing members of the group;
· (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
· (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
· (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
· (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. [1]
This definition implies that what matters is not the total eradication of any group but the intent to destroy a substantial part. As Samantha Powers notes “If the perpetrator did not target a national, ethnic, or religious group as such, then the killings would constitute mass homicide, not genocide.”[2] Jacques Semelin further argues that intent separates genocide from ethnic cleansing noting that departure or flight of the “othered” population is not allowed in a genocide, whereas it is optimal in a situation of ethnic cleansing. Therefore, genocide becomes a “specific process of civilian destruction with a view to the total eradication of a community identified by criteria determined by the perpetrator”.[3]
[1] “Convention on the Crime and Punishment of Genocide” www.un.org , 16/08/94, United Nations, http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html.
[2] Samantha Powers, From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, New York: Perennial, 2003. 57.
[3] Jacques Semelin, “From Massacre to the Genocidal Process” in International Social Science Journal Vol. 54. 174 (2002): 433-442. 439.
Tags: 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the, defined, definition, genocide, Jaques Semelin, Samantha Powers
