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What does genocide mean?

2023-11-02 18:10:52Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA SONIA PHALNIKAR
What does genocide mean?
Srebrenica

Wars and armed conflicts often result in a high number of casualties. Sometimes accusations of "genocide" are raised. But what is genocide legally?

The terms genocide and mass killing of people were first used during the horrors of the Holocaust in World War II. They refer to an attempt to exterminate a certain group of people.

In 1943, Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the term for the systematic murder of Jews in Nazi Germany. Lemkin lost all family members except his brother in the Holocaust. He campaigned for genocide to be recognized as a crime under international law, paving the way for the adoption of the UN Genocide Convention in 1948. It entered into force in 1951. Article II of the Convention defines genocide as an act "committed with the intention to annihilate, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". According to the definition of the United Nations, such acts include: killing people, physically or psychologically harming them, worsening their living conditions to a life-threatening extent, preventing births in this population group and forcibly removing children from the group.

Who can be prosecuted?

The UN Genocide Convention states that anyone can be prosecuted and convicted for genocide, including elected representatives. The International Criminal Court is mandated to investigate and prosecute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

According to its statute, anyone who commits, orders, participates in or incites genocide can be prosecuted. Another court, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, deals with inter-state disputes and can decide whether a state is responsible for genocide.

Witnessing genocide is not easy

"In everyday life, many people use the term genocide very loosely for the biggest and most serious crimes, because somehow it sounds much worse than war crimes or crimes against humanity," explains Valérie Gabard, international law expert at Hague and co-founder of legal consulting firm UpRights, in an interview with Deutsche Welle. "But in the legal context, the definition is very narrow," she explains. "Defining genocide is not about numbers. The most important criterion is the intention to physically exterminate a group."

Experts point out that it is difficult to prove this intention because direct evidence is often lacking. "The problem with proving genocidal intent is that the perpetrators don't make a direct confession in court," explains William Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University in London and Leiden University. "Courts must ascertain their intention from the perpetrators' behavior itself. They must rely on circumstantial evidence. And this finding should be beyond any doubt. And this is difficult."

Tracking genocide takes time

Gabard has served on international criminal tribunals for Cambodia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. She points out that prosecuting genocide can take a long time: “When it comes to genocide, there are always many victims and crimes take a long time to investigate. We must not only prove the intent to kill, but the intent to kill people because they belong to a certain group."

Is it genocide or not?

In recent years, politicians have often used the term genocide to describe human rights abuses in China, Myanmar, Syria and now Ukraine. Following atrocities committed by Russian troops in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of genocide in 2022.

A year ago, the governments of the United States, Canada and the Netherlands accused China of committing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Several other countries presented parliamentary resolutions making the same accusation. Experts point to three genocides that have been recognized as such by an international court: Rwanda, where about 800,000 Tutsi and Hutus were killed in the 1994 genocide, the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, which was judged as genocide by the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia, and the Khmer Rouge killings in Cambodia in the 1970s. The Khmer Rouge killed many of their victims because of their political or social status, so there is no consensus here as to whether this really constitutes genocide, by definition of the UN.

In 2010, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for genocide against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of a military campaign against the people of the Darfur region.

"The legal definition of genocide is applied in cases before the International Court of Justice and in the decisions of the Rwanda Tribunal. The existing law shows very clearly what genocide is," emphasizes Schabas. "But there are also attempts to use the term genocide for events that do not meet the legal definition of genocide, be it the Uyghurs in China or the war in Ukraine"./ DW


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