Answer:
Genocide, in the Convention, 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:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Therefore, under international law, genocide is a punishable crime. Any person found guilty of carrying out genocide will be tried by a tribunal of the state where the genocide was committed or an international tribunal.
Ethnic Cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the process of removing particular groups from a specific area based on race, nationality, religion and other identifying principles.
While ethnic cleansing doesn’t, by definition, involve the intent to kill a group, the resettlement of said people typically results in the loss of lives; genocide, however, focuses on the “intent to destroy.”
Ethnic cleansing is considered a crime against humanity. It has not been written and signed in any U.N. treaty, which means Member States do not have to protect those who have fallen victim.
Critics of the terms “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” say that many state governments will use the initial phrase — even in incidents that could arguably be classified as genocide — in order to escape the necessity of using state resources and taking action against the perpetrating nation.
