What is genocide?

What is Genocide?
The term genocide," which did not exist before 1944, is a very specific term, referring to massive crimes committed against groups. Human rights, as laid out in the U.S. Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of individuals.
In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of European Jewry. He formed the word "genocide" by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with cide, from the Latin word for killing. In proposing this new term, Lemkin had in mind "a coordinated 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 next year, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg charged top Nazis with "crimes against humanity." The word "genocide" was included in the indictment, but as international crime, which signatory nations "undertake to prevent and punish." It defines genocide as:
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, 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; d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
While many cases of group-targeted violence have occurred throughout history and even since the Convention came into effect, the legal and international development of the term is concentrated into two distinct historical periods: the time from the coining of the term until its acceptance as international law (1944-1948) and the time of its activation with the establishment of international criminal tribunals to prosecute the crime of genocide (19911998). Preventing genocide, the other major obligation of the convention, remains a challenge that nations and individuals continue to face.
People and governments continue to get away not only with murder, but with mass murder and victimization. The challenge is to learn from the past and taking actions, not being bystanders to genocide remains central to our lives and our times.