Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- PART A Minorities-specific instruments, provisions and institutions
- PART B Non-minorities-specific instruments, provisions and institutions
- 7 Developments relating to minorities in the law on genocide
- 8 The United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
- 9 The United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
- 10 The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Children Belonging to Minority Groups
- 11 UNESCO's Convention Against Discrimination in Education
- 12 A patchwork of ‘successful’ and ‘missed’ synergies in the jurisprudence of the ECHR
- 13 The many faces of minority policy in the European Union
- 14 Developments under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights relevant to Minorities
- 15 Regional cooperation and minority issues in the Asia-Pacific region
- Index
- References
7 - Developments relating to minorities in the law on genocide
from PART B - Non-minorities-specific instruments, provisions and institutions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- PART A Minorities-specific instruments, provisions and institutions
- PART B Non-minorities-specific instruments, provisions and institutions
- 7 Developments relating to minorities in the law on genocide
- 8 The United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
- 9 The United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
- 10 The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Children Belonging to Minority Groups
- 11 UNESCO's Convention Against Discrimination in Education
- 12 A patchwork of ‘successful’ and ‘missed’ synergies in the jurisprudence of the ECHR
- 13 The many faces of minority policy in the European Union
- 14 Developments under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights relevant to Minorities
- 15 Regional cooperation and minority issues in the Asia-Pacific region
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
Raphael Lemkin first proposed the term ‘genocide’ in his seminal 1944 study on Nazi occupation policies. Lemkin's interest in the subject dated to his days as a student at Lvov University, when he intently followed attempts to prosecute the perpetrators of the massacres of the Armenians. Lemkin created the term ‘genocide’ from two words, genos, which means race, nation or tribe in ancient Greek, and caedere, meaning to kill in Latin. Lemkin suggested the following definition:
a co-ordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objective of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group.
Lemkin called for the development of ‘provisions protecting minority groups from oppression because of their nationhood, religion, or race’. Noting that ‘genocide’ referred to the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group, he described it as ‘an old practice in its modern development’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Synergies in Minority ProtectionEuropean and International Law Perspectives, pp. 189 - 212Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009