On Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Chris Doss wrote:
> > Article 2 of the Convention states that "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; . . .
>
> What an unworkable definition. According to this, if a Philippino gang
> in New York shoots up a bunch of members of a Puerto Rican gang, they
> are engaging in genocide. Any war between two nation-states, nay, any
> war between two tribes, would classify as genocide under defs. a and b.
No, that's not true. You're leaving out the intent part (intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such) and the fact that each of these terms are further specified in the commentary. For example, "in part" means in major part, like "all the educated," and the destroying has to rise to the level of "mass murder" i.e., not on a small scale, and not a war (which isn't murder).
http://www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/officialtext.htm
The problem with definition is not that it applies to everything, but rather that it applies to almost nothing, and provides no alternative option. So people feel compelled to claim genocide whenever they see a massacre if they want anyone to feel they have any duty to do anything. In well run world, we'd just have a law against large massacres, regardless of intent or percentages. But for that to entail a duty would require a complete reorganization of international law and its central institutions -- a third League of Nations/UN moment that was more successful than either of them were.
Michael