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Encyclopedia > Genocide definitions

This is a list of scholarly and international legal definitions of genocide,[1] a word coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944.[2] Genocide is the mass killing of a group of people as defined by Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or... Rafael Lemkin (June 24, 1900—August 28, 1959) was a lawyer of Polish-Jewish descent. ...

Date Author Definition
1944 Raphael Lemkin By 'genocide' we mean the destruction of an ethnic group . . . . Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups . . ..

(Axis Rule in Occupied Europe ix. 79)[2][3] Rafael Lemkin (June 24, 1900—August 28, 1959) was a lawyer of Polish-Jewish descent. ...

1945 Count 3 of the indictment of the 24 Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg Trials They (the defendants) conducted deliberate and systematic genocide - viz., the extermination of racial and national groups - against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people, and national, racial or religious roups, particularly Jews, Poles, Gypsies and others. [4][5]
1946 Raphael Lemkin The crime of genocide should be recognized therein as a conspiracy to exterminate national, religious or racial groups. The overt acts of such a conspiracy may consist of attacks against life, liberty or property of members of such groups merely because of their affiliation with such groups. The formulation of the crime may be as follows: "Whoever, while participating in a conspiracy to destroy a national, racial or religious group, undertakes an attack against life, liberty or property of members of such groups is guilty of the crime of genocide. (Genocide, American Scholar, Volume 15, no. 2 (April 1946), p. 227-230)[6]
1948 The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948 and came into effect on 12 January 1951 (Resolution 260 (III)). Article 2: Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (Article 2 CPPCG)
1959 Peter Drost Genocide is the deliberate destruction of physical life of individual human beings by reason of their membership of any human collectivity as such. (The Crime of State, Volume 2, Leiden, 1959, p. 125.)[7][8]
1975 Vahakn Dadrian Genocide is the successful attempt by a dominant group, vested with formal authority and/or with preponderant access to the overall resources of power, to reduce by coercion or lethal violence the number of a minority group whose ultimate extermination is held desirable and useful and whose respective vulnerability is a major factor contributing to the decision for genocide. (A Typology of Genocide)[9]
1976 Irving Louis Horowitz [Genocide is] a structural and systematic destruction of innocent people by a state bureaucratic apparatus. . . . Genocide represents a systematic effort over time to liquidate a national population, usually a minority . . . [and] functions as a fundamental political policy to assure conformity and participation of the citizenry. (Genocide: State Power and Mass Murder)[10]
1981 Leo Kuper I shall follow the definition of genocide given in the [UN] Convention. This is not to say that I agree with the definition. On the contrary, I believe a major omission to be in the exclusion of political groups from the list of groups protected. In the contemporary world, political differences are at the very least as signicant a basis for massacre and annihilation as racial, national, ethnic or religious differences. Then too, the genocides against racial, national, ethnic or religious groups are generally a consequence of, or intimately related to, political conflict. However, I do not think it helpful to create new definitions of genocide, when there is an internationally recognized definition and a Genocide Convention which might become the basis for some effective action, however limited the underlying conception. But since it would vitiate the analysis to exclude political groups, I shall refer freely . . . to liquidating or exterminatory actions against them. (Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century)[11]
1982 Jack Nusan Porter Genocide is the deliberate destruction, in whole or in part, by a government or its agents, of a racial, sexual, religious, tribal or political minority. It can involve not only mass murder, but also starvation, forced deportation, and political, economic and biological subjugation. Genocide involves three major components: ideology, technology, and bureaucracy/organization.[12]
1984 Yehuda Bauer [Genocide is] the planned destruction, since the mid-nineteenth century, of a racial, national, or ethnic group as such, by the following means: (a) selective mass murder of elites or parts of the population; (b) elimination of national (racial, ethnic) culture and religious life with the intent of "denationalization"; (c) enslavement, with the same intent; (d) destruction of national (racial, ethnic) economic life, with the same intent; (e) biological decimation through the kidnapping of children, or the prevention of normal family life, with the same intent. . . . [Holocaust is] the planned physical annihilation, for ideological or pseudo-religious reasons, of all the members of a national, ethnic, or racial group.[12][13]
1987 John L. Thompson and Gail A. Quets Genocide is the extent of destruction of a social collectivity by whatever agents, with whatever intentions, by purposive actions which fall outside the recognized conventions of legitimate warfare.[14]
1987 Isidor Wallimann and Michael N. Dobkowski Genocide is the deliberate, organized destruction, in whole or in large part, of racial or ethnic groups by a government or its agents. It can involve not only mass murder, but also forced deportation (ethnic cleansing), systematic rape, and economic and biological subjugation. (Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000. Reissue of an early work.)[15]
1988 Henry Huttenbach Genocide is any act that puts the very existence of a group in jeopardy. (Locating the Holocaust on the genocide spectrum: towards a methodology of definition and categorization, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Vol 3, No 3, pp 389-403.)[14][16]
1988 Helen Fein Genocide is a series of purposeful actions by a perpetrator(s) to destroy a collectivity through mass or selective murders of group members and suppressing the biological and social reproduction of the collectivity. This can be accomplished through the imposed proscription or restriction of reproduction of group members, increasing infant mortality, and breaking the linkage between reproduction and socialization of children in the family or group of origin. The perpetrator may represent the state of the victim, another state, or another collectivity. (Genocide: A Sociological Perspective, London)[14][8]
1990 Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn Genocide is a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator. (The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies, Yale University Press)[14][17]
1993 Helen Fein Genocide is sustained purposeful action by a perpetrator to physically destroy a collectivity directly or indirectly, through interdiction of the biological and social reproduction of group members, sustained regardless of the surrender or lack of threat offered by the victim. (Genocide: A Sociological Perspective, 1993/1990)[18][19]
1994 Steven T. Katz [Genocide is] the actualization of the intent, however successfully carried out, to murder in its totality any national, ethnic, racial, religious, political, social, gender or economic group, as these groups are defined by the perpetrator, by whatever means.(The Holocaust in Historical Perspective, Vol. 1, 1994) [Modified by Adam Jones in 2000 to read, "murder in whole or in substantial part. ..."][18][17]
1994 Israel Charny Genocide in the generic sense means the mass killing of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an avowed enemy, under conditions of the essential defencelessness of the victim. (Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions ed. George Andreopoulos)[18][17]
1996 Irving Louis Horowitz Genocide is herein defined as a structural and systematic destruction of innocent people by a state bureaucratic apparatus [emphasis in original]. . . . Genocide mean the physical dismemberment and liquidation of people on large scales, an attempt by those who rule to achieve the total elimination of a subject people.[18][20]
2003 Barbara Harff Genocides and politicides are the promotion, execution, and/or implied consent of sustained policies by governing elites or their agents — or, in the case of civil war either of the contending authorities — that are intended to destroy, in whole or part, a communal, political, or politicized ethnic group.[18]

The Süddeutsche Zeitung announces The Verdict in Nuremberg. ... The Süddeutsche Zeitung announces The Verdict in Nuremberg. ... The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948 and came into effect in January 1951. ... United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. ... December 9 is the 343rd day of the year (344th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... January 12 is the 12th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... One of the most influential doctrines in history is that all humans are divided into groups called nations. ... This article or section should be merged with ethnic group Ethnicity is the cultural characteristics that connect a particular group or groups of people to each other. ... For other uses, see Race (disambiguation). ... Various Religious symbols, including (first row) Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Bahai, (second row) Islamic, tribal, Taoist, Shinto (third row) Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu, Jain, (fourth row) Ayyavazhi, Triple Goddess, Maltese cross, pre-Christian Slavonic Religion is the adherence to codified beliefs and rituals that generally involve a faith in a spiritual... Holocaust and Genocide Studies is the leading international peer-reviewed academic journal addressing the issue of the Holocaust and other genocides. ... Politicide is a punk band formed in the early 80s. ...

References

  • Jones, Adam. Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, Routledge/Taylor & Francis Publishers, 2006. ISBN: 0-415-35385-8. Chapter 1: The Origins of Genocide pages 15-18
  • Social Scientists' Definitions of Genocide, Institute for the Study of Genocide, International Association of Genocide Scholars
  • 2007 Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide – What is Genocide? McGill faculty of law (McGill University) . A collection of genocide definitions by the Aegis Trust

McGill University is a publicly funded, co-educational research university located in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. ... Aegis Trust is a United Kingdom-based anti-genocide campaign founded in 2000 by Drs James and Stephen Smith. ...

Footnotes

  1. ^ Based on a list by Adam Jones pp.15-18
  2. ^ a b Oxford English Dictionary "Genocide" citing Raphael Lemkin Axis Rule in Occupied Europe ix. 79
  3. ^ Diane F. Orentlicher Genocide
  4. ^ Oxford English Dictionary "Genocide" citing Sunday Times 21 October 1945
  5. ^ Raphael Lemkin, Genocide American Scholar, Volume 15, no. 2 (April 1946), p. 227-230
  6. ^ Raphael Lemkin, Genocide American Scholar, Volume 15, no. 2 (April 1946), p. 227-230
  7. ^ Adam Jones p. 15
  8. ^ a b Hans-Lukas Kieser & Dominik Schaller Kolloquium: Der Völkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah
  9. ^ Adam Jones pp. 14,15
  10. ^ Adam Jones pp. 14,16
  11. ^ Adam Jones pp. 3,14,16
  12. ^ a b Adam Jones p. 16
  13. ^ Adam Jones notes that Bauer distinguishes between "genocide" and "holocaust"
  14. ^ a b c d Adam Jones p. 17
  15. ^ Adam Jones pp. 17,32
  16. ^ Yaroslav Bilinsky Was the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933 Genocide? Journal of Genocide Research (1999), 1(2), 147-156
  17. ^ a b c Social Scientists' Definitions of Genocide Institute for the Study of Genocide, International Association of Genocide Scholars
  18. ^ a b c d e Adam Jones p. 18
  19. ^ 2007 Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide – What is Genocide? McGill Faculty of Law (McGill University)
  20. ^ Adam Jones notes that Horowitz supports "carefully distinguishing the [Jewish] Holocaust from genocide"; and that Horowitz also refers to "the phenomenon of mass murder, for which genocide is a synonym".

 

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