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when the president Joe Biden declares that the Russia’s war in Ukraine is a “genocide”is not just another strong word.
Calling a campaign aimed at eliminating a specific group “genocide” not only increases the pressure on a country to act, it can force it to do so. That’s partly because of a genocide treaty approved by the United Nations General Assembly after World War IIsigned by the United States and more than 150 countries.
The convention was the work of, among others, a Polish Jew whose family was murdered by Nazi Germany and its accomplices. The promoters of the convention advocated for something that would make the world not only condemn, but actually prevent and ensure that genocide does not go unpunished in the future.
In comments on Tuesday, Biden accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to “kill the idea of even being Ukrainian.”. Other world rulers have not gone that far. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said Russia’s behavior in Ukraine “is not far from genocide”, but Britain has not officially used the term, saying only a court can make such a designation.
Here’s a look at what that decision entails, and what it means for a president to declare that genocide has been committed:
What does ‘genocide’ mean?
It’s a surprisingly modern word for an ancient crime. A Jewish lawyer from Poland, Raphael Lemkin, coined it at the height of the World War II and the Holocaust. Lemkin wanted a word to describe what Nazi Germany was doing to the Jews of Europe, and what Turkey had done to the Armenians in the 1910s: Kill members of a specific group of people and work relentlessly to eradicate their cultures.
Lemkin joined “geno”, a Greek word meaning race, and “cide”, Latin word meaning to kill. He dedicated his life so that genocides were recognized and penalized.
In 1948, after Adolf Hitler and their accomplices systematically murdered 6 million Jews in Europe, the UN General Assembly approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
What is the legal definition?
According to the genocide convention, the crime consists of attempting to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.
This includes mass murder, but also other actions, including forced sterilization, abuse that inflicts serious harm or mental suffering, or taking children from a specific group to be raised by others.
Is Russia committing genocide in Ukraine?
The case may hinge in part on Putin’s own words.
Russian forces have been widely accused of committing wholesale abuses against civilians Ukraine, including mass murder.
Those would be war crimes. But do they amount to genocide?
It’s all a matter of intent, said Bohdan Vitvitsky, a former US federal prosecutor and former special adviser to Ukraine’s attorney general.
“Any attempt to determine whether the crimes committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine are motivated by genocidal intent must necessarily focus on the statements of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Vitvisky wrote for the Atlantic Council think tank this week.
Putin has long denied any right of Ukraine to exist as a separate nation, or of Ukrainians to be a separate people. He cites history, when Ukraine was part of the Russian empire, and later of the Soviet Union.
In a lengthy essay last year, titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” Putin made clear the depth of his determination on the matter. He said that the modern border dividing Russia and Ukraine is “our great misfortune and common tragedy”.
Putin and Russian state media falsely call Ukrainian leaders “Nazis” and “drug addicts.” The Russian president has said that his military campaign in Ukraine is a denazification.
Gissou Nia, a human rights lawyer who has worked on war crimes trials in The Hague, points to two alleged acts of Russia in Ukraine that also possibly show intent to commit genocide: reports on the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russiaand a version, coming from the Ukrainian government, of Russian soldiers who told 25 women and girls detained in the city of Bucha that the Russians intended to rape them to the point that they would never have Ukrainian children.
Why does it matter if world leaders use ‘genocide’ to describe Russia’s actions?
The genocide convention includes an obligation that the United States and other signatories have treated with caution: If they admit that genocide is taking place, they commit to ensuring that it will be investigated and prosecuted, at the very least.
People and countries that commit genocide “will be punished”the treaty declares, in an attempt to crush any room for manoeuvre.
For decades, US rulers evaded the use of the word “genocide” in order to avoid mounting pressure on them to act. at a time when there were mass killings targeting classes of people or ethnic groups in Cambodia, Bosnia, Iraq, Rwanda and other places.
Regretting not having done more to stop the massacre of 800,000 ethnic Tutsi at the hands of the Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, Bill Clinton became the first US president to acknowledge an act of genocide in June 1999. as it unfolded, saying that Serb forces waging a deadly campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo were attempting to commit genocide.
NATO intervened, launching airstrikes for 78 days that forced Serb fighters to withdraw from Kosovo. An international court charged Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic with war crimes, but Milosevic died before his trial was completed.
Beginning in 2005, rulers of various countries also adopted —in principle— the responsibility to act collectively to stop genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, atrocities and targeted campaigns against certain groups continue around the world, and the so-called responsibility to protect is rarely invoked.
What would happen if the United States declared that the Russian actions constituted genocide?
US leaders have long feared that acknowledging that genocide is taking place will force them to intervene, and even to send soldiers, with all the risks, costs and political consequences that this would entail. It has been one of the main reasons why the rulers limit themselves to issuing angry statements and sending humanitarian aid.
Biden is categorical in stating that The United States will not use its own military to confront Russian forces on behalf of Ukraine.. Doing so would run the risk of unleashing the Third World waras he has said.
He and his allies in Europe and elsewhere are already intervening by sanctioning Russia and sending arms and other supplies to Ukraine for defense.
Biden and other Western leaders have also called for war crimes trials. The International Criminal Court has already launched an investigation. But Washington’s long-standing opposition to that tribunal, fearing that US troops could one day be tried there, makes it difficult to hold such trials. Russia’s veto power in the UN Security Council also. And in practical terms, bringing Putin to justice is a long shot.
In the past, Americans’ opposition to becoming involved in foreign wars has also helped discourage US rulers from doing more to stop possible acts of genocide.
But the Russian invasion of a neighboring country and brutality against the Ukrainian people have angered Americans in a way that the genocidal campaigns in Cambodia did notKurdish areas of Iraq and elsewhere.
A recent poll by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research revealed that the 40 percent of Americans believe the United States should play a “major role” in ending the Russian invasion. Only 13 percent believe that Washington should not be involved at all.
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