We must first understand genocide to determine if it is happening
As in the case of the Holocaust, the term genocide is reserved for the occurrence of a two-fold murder: not just the mass murder of individuals, but the deliberate attempt to murder the group to which the individuals belong. Picture: Dave Thompson/PA Wire
Is it genocide? That’s the question. It’s what we are all asking ourselves today, it’s what every government in the world is pondering.
But before we can even begin to answer this question, there is a preliminary issue that needs to be settled: what is genocide? We cannot determine whether an action or policy is or is not something until we know what that something is.
Making sense of genocide is a complex undertaking. There are two different paths we can take: via moral philosophy or international law. The realms of philosophy and law are closely interwoven, to the extent philosophy informs legal reasoning and vice-versa: ‘human rights’, ‘torture’, ‘crime against humanity’, are both philosophical and legal concepts, and the same goes for ‘genocide’.
And yet these two approaches can and ought to be distinguished, since philosophy and law present us with different insights into the nature and gravity of genocide.
Genocide is a relatively recent term, first coined by the Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin in 1944. The term is formed by two parts: genos (people in the sense of groups) and cide (murder).
Essentially, as in the case of the Holocaust, the term genocide is reserved for the occurrence of a two-fold murder: not just the mass murder of individuals, but the deliberate attempt to murder the group to which the individuals belong.
Moral philosophers are interested in identifying the distinctive evil at the heart of genocide. They highlight the intent to extinguish members of a group not because of anything they have done, but solely because of their identification as members of a group.
It is the idea of social death that distinguishes the peculiar evil of genocide from the evils of other mass murders.
Feminist philosopher Claudia Card suggests that specific to genocide is the harm inflicted on its victims’ social vitality: “Social vitality exists through relationships, contemporary and intergenerational, that create an identity that gives meaning to a life. Major loss of social vitality is a loss of identity and consequently a serious loss of meaning for one’s existence”.
The evolution of the crime of genocide within international law has been a complex and significant process, shaped by a growing recognition of the need for a legal framework to address such state atrocities.
Although the term ‘genocide’ was first used within a legal context during the Nuremberg trials, it was United Nations General Assembly resolution 96(I) which played a crucial role in the early acknowledgment of genocide as a violation of international law in 1946, setting the stage for subsequent developments.
The culmination of which came with the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948. The convention defined genocide as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”.
Central to the convention’s definition of the crime of genocide is the emphasis on specific intent as a key element. For an act to be considered genocide, the perpetrator must have the specific intent to destroy, either wholly or partially, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.
This distinguishes genocide from other crimes, such as crimes against humanity, and has played a pivotal role in shaping the legal understanding and operation within international law.
The establishment of international criminal tribunals further advanced the development of the crime of genocide. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda were instrumental in prosecuting individuals responsible for genocide in their respective contexts.
The creation of the International Criminal Court in 1998 marked a significant milestone, as it assumed jurisdiction over genocide and other international crimes, operating as a permanent institution committed to holding individuals accountable on a global scale.
Notwithstanding these legal developments, genocide has remained a contested term since its inception, as reflected in the two years which were required to draft the convention.
Specifically, the legislative definition of genocide is considered narrow and difficult to enforce in practice. Antonio Cassese, the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, noted “at the enforcement level, the convention has long proven a failure”.
Nevertheless, international jurisprudence has played a critical role in interpreting and clarifying genocide as the ‘crime of crimes’, reflecting a collective commitment to preventing and punishing severe forms of mass violence.
Notwithstanding efforts by philosophers and lawyers to bring clarity to this concept, an element of vagueness is inbuilt in all definitions of genocide.
This inevitably leads to charges of genocide becoming a metaphor for all atrocities on a mass scale, a tendency that ought to be resisted.
If genocide is to retain its distinctiveness, it must not be confused with the many other unspeakable acts of atrocious violence and mass killing occurring in war.
We must always remember that, as Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt once said, genocide is “an organised attempt to eradicate the concept of the human”.
Whether genocide is in fact occurring in the world, today, is for each of us to determine.
- Dr Vittorio Bufacchi, senior lecturer in philosophy at University College Cork, is the author of (Palgrave).
- Dr Samantha Morgan-Williams, a lecturer in the School of Law at University College Cork, is director of the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights and co-director of the Traveller Equality & Justice Project.
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