GENOCIDE
What exactly is genocide?
It seems like a tough question, one of those words we all understand but have a difficult time actually defining. The word itself was coined in 1944 by a Polish Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin, and comes from the greek work geno- meaning race or tribe, and the latin word -cide, which means killing. Put those two together and you get genocide... the killing of a race or tribe. If we use this as our definition we can go backwards through history and find many instances of genocide.
After WWII, during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, genocide was included in the Crimes Against Humanity indictment, but as a descriptive term, not a legal one. Therefore, the captured Nazi officials in the dock could not be convicted of genocide.
Lemkin got to work, and in 1948 the term Genocide was officially and legally defined in the UN's Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The new and improved definition looks like this:
Genocide means 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.
Good work Mr. Lemkin! Now we can hold leaders accountable for the crime of genocide.
For more information on Mr. Lemkin click here.
For a timeline regarding defining genocide click here.
After WWII, during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, genocide was included in the Crimes Against Humanity indictment, but as a descriptive term, not a legal one. Therefore, the captured Nazi officials in the dock could not be convicted of genocide.
Lemkin got to work, and in 1948 the term Genocide was officially and legally defined in the UN's Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The new and improved definition looks like this:
Genocide means 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.
Good work Mr. Lemkin! Now we can hold leaders accountable for the crime of genocide.
For more information on Mr. Lemkin click here.
For a timeline regarding defining genocide click here.