Kind of. It’s a rare opening for the use of legitimate force against a sovereign state, but it’s extremely hard to use.
Technically, if something meets the definition it would still be genocide even if the Security Council didn’t recognize it as such. In practice however, members of the Security Council can always claim the intention to be lacking, rendering it for all intents and purposes limited to political opportunity.
Of course, I’m speaking from a international law/politics perspective. This doesn’t falsify the dictionary definition; the word itself simply comes from latin gens, a group of people from a common ancestor, and cide, killing. Using it in that way normal conversation is not at all wrong.
It will, however, land you in frustrating discussions with people who will insist on the UN definition, and who are trained to only use the word genocide when they believe they can truly support it in the strictest sense. Which is why, depending on audience, it’s often easier to speak of war crimes and the murdering of civilians. Which should be equally powerful as long as you’re not actively making a case for the UN to intervene. And if you are making that case, you should absolutely be aware of the UN definition and its challenges.
The genocide/not genocide discussion risks becoming a distraction, and a lot of bad guys could score an apparent point by experts in the field having to confess that they cannot safely qualify their murdering of civilians as genocide. It doesn’t make the actions any less deplorable; it’s merely why you’re not going to see a lot of commentators use the word “genocide” about ongoing situations.
The UN definition renders it a word that is almost impossible to use, but in turn it’s the only concept in international law (at least that I can think of) that opens for the legitimate use of force against a sovereign state outside of war. So there are pros and cons.
The problem is the same as with “theory”: you use the colloquial definition to name things, then try and enforce the consequences of the technical definition.
Kind of. It’s a rare opening for the use of legitimate force against a sovereign state, but it’s extremely hard to use.
Technically, if something meets the definition it would still be genocide even if the Security Council didn’t recognize it as such. In practice however, members of the Security Council can always claim the intention to be lacking, rendering it for all intents and purposes limited to political opportunity.
Of course, I’m speaking from a international law/politics perspective. This doesn’t falsify the dictionary definition; the word itself simply comes from latin gens, a group of people from a common ancestor, and cide, killing. Using it in that way normal conversation is not at all wrong.
It will, however, land you in frustrating discussions with people who will insist on the UN definition, and who are trained to only use the word genocide when they believe they can truly support it in the strictest sense. Which is why, depending on audience, it’s often easier to speak of war crimes and the murdering of civilians. Which should be equally powerful as long as you’re not actively making a case for the UN to intervene. And if you are making that case, you should absolutely be aware of the UN definition and its challenges.
The genocide/not genocide discussion risks becoming a distraction, and a lot of bad guys could score an apparent point by experts in the field having to confess that they cannot safely qualify their murdering of civilians as genocide. It doesn’t make the actions any less deplorable; it’s merely why you’re not going to see a lot of commentators use the word “genocide” about ongoing situations.
The UN definition renders it a word that is almost impossible to use, but in turn it’s the only concept in international law (at least that I can think of) that opens for the legitimate use of force against a sovereign state outside of war. So there are pros and cons.
The problem is the same as with “theory”: you use the colloquial definition to name things, then try and enforce the consequences of the technical definition.