Genocide: The Mother of All Crimes

Genocide is frequently misperceived as a crime involving the killing of a lot of people—without further qualification. However, this is a misinterpretation of the crime, because it does not embrace the particular mental element of a special intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such. Common to these groups, and indeed the reason for the Convention’s protection of them, is that they are permanent in the sense that their members have not made any individual and deliberate choice to join the group; they were rather “born” into membership. According to the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide can indeed be committed by killing members of the group, but it can also be committed in other ways—without actually killing anyone—for example, by causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, or by forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Looking at a few historic genocide cases—but without going into any lengthy detail with them—and in view of the current armed conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, this chapter seeks to analyze the elements of the crime of genocide and to put the current applications by South Africa against Israel and by Nicaragua against Germany before the International Court of Justice in a broader context.