genocide

The word was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. Article II of the Genocide Convention, 1948 lists five acts: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy it, imposing measures to prevent births, and forcibly transferring its children. What sets genocide apart is the special intent (dolus specialis) to destroy the group as such. Political and social groups are not covered.

The same definition appears in Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro (2007) the ICJ held that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide and that Serbia had failed to prevent it. India is a party to the Convention but has not enacted a separate offence of genocide.

Example

Mass killing alone is not genocide; the prosecution must prove intent to destroy a protected group as such.

In Indian law

• Article II, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948
• Article 6, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1998
• Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro (ICJ, 2007)

See also

International Criminal Court · universal jurisdiction · jus cogens · erga omnes

Read more in the study notes

• Origin and development of human rights (Human Rights Law and Practice)
• The UN Charter and the UN human rights machinery (Human Rights Law and Practice)
• Dictatorship, totalitarianism, Fascism, Nazism and Soviet communism (Political Science - Theory and Thoughts)
• Sources of international law (Public International Law)
• Subjects of international law: States, organisations and individuals (Public International Law)
• State jurisdiction: principles and exemptions (Public International Law)