The Irony of “Genocide”

A Jewish lawyer coined the term because there was no word that described the murder of a whole people. But the definition he favored is so loose it can apply to almost any conflict.

In all the justified outrage over Israel being charged in the International Court of Justice with committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, one thing has gone largely uncommented on. This is that the 1948 United Nations “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” on which the charge is based is so loosely and sloppily phrased that it might be taken to apply to most countries in human history that have warred against other countries, political entities, or armed groups.

Here are the preamble and first three clauses of Article II of the Convention, in which the crime of Genocide is defined:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical [sic], 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.

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Here are the preamble and first three clauses of Article II of the Convention, in which the crime of Genocide is defined:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical [sic], 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.

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