Genocide

Developing a Definition of Genocide

The defining of genocide is very recent, and definitions remain diverse among academics. Awareness of the organized, legitimized, and instigated cruelty of genocide has developed mainly from the 1944 work of Raphael Lemkin in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Lemkin coined the word genocide from the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing).

As a result of Lemkin's work, in 1946 the UN General Assembly recognized, “Genocide is a crime under international law which the civilized world condemns, and for the commission of which principles and accomplices are punishable” (Rummel, 2009, p. 33). Within 2 years, the General Assembly passed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Genocide is defined by acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group through the reduction of security, liberty, and safety—even the right to life. The legal definition is found in the 1948 Article 2 of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide:

Influenced by Soviet Russia's leader Joseph Stalin at the time of documenting Article 2, this definition of genocide does not currently include political groups.

Top-Down, State-Endorsed Genocide

The power of rulers to control the masses is well documented throughout history. It was exploited by Adolf Hitler and his ministers, and is carried out by suppressing personal and independent thinking and promoting nationalist thinking (or religious dominance) and, hence, alignment with the dominant group. Such suppression of individual thinking is replaced with defined lines of group affiliation against a perceived “enemy.” During the 20th century, the rise of top-down, state-endorsed mass murders of ethnic cleansing and genocide stimulated legal debate and academic research aimed at bringing accountability and understanding to such horrors. These include the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire during World War I and the [Page 281]Nazi Holocaust against European Jews and other groups during World War II. Both were systematic, well-coordinated, state-directed campaigns directed at mass extermination. Since World War II, the Cambodian (1975–1979), and Rwandan (April to July 1994) genocides similarly emphasize national power, albeit usurped, to indoctrinate select groups against targeted groups within once coexisting communities.

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