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Genocide
Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by means such as "the disintegration of [its] political and social institutions, of [its] cultural genocide, culture, linguicide, language, national feelings, religious persecution, religion, and [its] economic existence". During the struggle to ratify the Genocide Convention, powerful countries restricted Lemkin's definition to exclude their own actions from being classified as genocide, ultimately limiting it to any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". While there are many scholarly Genocide definitions, definitions of genocide, almost all international bodies of law officially adjudicate the crime of genocide pursuant to the Genocide Convention. Genocide has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genocide Definitions
Genocide definitions include many scholarly and international legal definitions of genocide, a word coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944.Oxford English Dictionary "Genocide" citing Raphael Lemkin ''Axis Rule in Occupied Europe'' ix. 79 The word is a compound of the ancient Greek word (, 'genus', or 'kind') and the Latin word ("kill"). While there are various definitions of the term, almost all international bodies of law officially adjudicate the crime of genocide pursuant to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). This and other definitions are generally regarded by the majority of genocide scholars to have an " intent to destroy" as a requirement for any act to be labelled genocide; there is also growing agreement on the inclusion of the physical destruction criterion. Writing in 1998, Kurt Jonassohn and Karin Björnson stated that the CPPCG was a legal instrument resulting from a diplomatic compromise; the wording of the treaty is not in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genocide Convention
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was the first legal instrument to codify genocide as a crime and the first human rights treaty unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948, during the third session of the United Nations General Assembly. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951 and has 153 state parties . The Genocide Convention was conceived largely in response to World War II, which saw atrocities such as the Holocaust that lacked an adequate description or legal definition. Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who had coined the term genocide in 1944 to describe Nazi policies in occupied Europe and the Armenian genocide, campaigned for its recognition as a crime under international law. Lemkin also linked colonialism w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raphael Lemkin
Raphael Lemkin (; 24 June 1900 – 28 August 1959) was a Polish lawyer who is known for coining the term "genocide" and for campaigning to establish the Genocide Convention, which legally defines the act. Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, he fled the country and sought asylum in the United States, where he became an academic at Duke University and campaigned vigorously to raise international awareness of the atrocities that were being committed by the Axis powers across occupied Europe. It was amidst this environment of World War II that Lemkin coined the term "genocide" to describe Nazi Germany's extermination policy. As a young Jewish law student who was deeply conscious of antisemitism and the persecution of Jews, Lemkin learned about the Ottoman genocide of the Armenian people during World War I and was deeply disturbed by the absence of international provisions to charge and punish those who were responsible for organizing and executing it. In his view, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genocide Recognition Politics
Genocide recognition politics are efforts to have a certain event (re)interpreted as a "genocide" or officially designated as such. Such efforts may occur regardless of whether the event meets the definition of genocide laid out in the 1948 Genocide Convention. In countries with settler colonial past, recognition of colonial genocides is difficult as the national past could be called into question. Most recorded genocides have been perpetrated by states. By country Canada As of June 2021, the government of Canada officially recognises eight 20th and 21st Century historical events of ethnic extermination, agrarian reform or forced cultural assimilation that took place beyond its borders as genocide: the Armenian genocide (1915–1917), the Holodomor (1932–1933), the Holocaust (1941-1945), the Rwandan genocide (1994), the Srebrenica massacre (1995), the Genocide of Yazidis by ISIL (2014), the Uyghur genocide (2014–present; recognised by Canada in February 2021), and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
