Genocide and Its Features
Senior 1 · History and Citizenship
Genocide and Its Features
Lesson 1 of 5
25 min
Important
Before you begin this unit
This unit is about the most serious crime there is. It is taught with respect for the victims and survivors, and without upsetting details. If you feel sad or distressed while you study it, it is fine to pause and to talk with a teacher, a parent or another adult you trust.
Source A. In 1944, during the Second World War, the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin published a book about how Nazi Germany was ruling the countries it had occupied. In chapter IX he wrote:
"New conceptions require new terms. By 'genocide' we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group."
Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), chapter IX, page 79.
He built the word from the Greek genos (a people or group) and the Latin -cide (killing).
Source B. Four years later, on 9 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Its Article II gives the legal definition still used by courts today:
"In the present Convention, 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."
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948, Article II.
Worked example: reading Article II clause by clause
Test: a government that kills its political opponents commits grave crimes, but not genocide under Article II, because political groups are not protected. A campaign to destroy a people because of its identity is genocide.
Definition
Genocide: any of the acts listed in Article II of the 1948 Convention, such as killing members of a group, committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such. The word was created by Raphael Lemkin in 1944.
Definition
Intent: the aim or purpose behind an act. For genocide, the law requires a special intent: to destroy a protected group, in whole or in part.
Definition
Protected group: a group that the Genocide Convention protects: national, ethnical, racial or religious. Membership is usually something people are born into or that others see them as belonging to.
Definition
Dehumanisation: describing or treating people as less than human, for example comparing them to animals or insects, so that harming them seems acceptable to others.
Historians who compare genocides find the same features again and again.
| Feature | What it means | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Intent to destroy a group as such | the aim is to wipe out a group, completely or in part, because of who its members are | this is what makes genocide different from other mass crimes |
| Planning and organisation | leaders prepare in advance: lists, weapons, militias, orders passed down a chain of command | genocide is not a sudden explosion of anger; it is organised, usually by a state or people who control it |
| Dehumanisation | propaganda describes the targeted group as less than human, as dangerous or as a disease | it breaks down the normal human refusal to harm neighbours |
| Targeting of everyone in the group | men, women, children and the elderly are targeted, whatever they have done | it shows that victims were chosen for their identity, not for any act |
| Mass participation | ordinary people are pressured, paid or ordered to take part; those who refuse may be threatened | it explains how so much harm can be done in a short time |
| Denial | afterwards, perpetrators and their supporters hide evidence and deny or minimise what happened | denial wounds survivors again and can prepare the way for new violence |
Important
Fifty years after Lemkin's word became law, it was used for the first time by an international court, in a case about the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
Lemkin wrote that "new conceptions require new terms". Why do you think it matters that this crime has its own precise name, instead of being called simply "mass killing"? Think about the victims, the courts and the prevention of future crimes.
Tip
Memory hook: "I.G.A.", Intent + Group + Act. If one of the three is missing, it is not genocide in law. And remember the two dates: 1944, the word; 1948, the law.
United Nations: "How Genocide Became Part of International Law" (3 minutes). Watch for Raphael Lemkin's part in the story and for why the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide asks everyone to take a stand. Teachers should preview it before class.
Practice
Sources and credits
