Exploring the Depths of Inhumanity: "Genocide", "War Crime", and "Atrocity"
Terms getting a lot of use these days, especially in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Over and above various dictionary and legal definitions, what are the conceptual meanings of "genocide", "war crime", and "atrocity", and why does it matter?
For "war crime", one clue is in the first word - things that happen during armed hostilities, generally (but not always) within the geographic parameters of those hostilities. The clue in the second word routes us to the various codes that define it: Starting with the Geneva Convention, various conglomerations of nation-states have defined a list of horrors that exceed the general horror level of war.
There is also a clue in the term "genocide", which is a term hybridize from both Greek "genos" meaning race or tribe, and a Latin suffix, "-cide" meaning killing. Very specifically, the term "genos" describes those who are bound not by an ideology, nationality or other conceptual identity, but by genetics: shared descent. This term makes no reference to the context of war.
The most general of the three terms, "atrocity" is etymologically the least distinct, with its Latin root "atrox" having connotations of 'cruel' or 'terrible'. In more recent times legal meanings have evolved under the aegis of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, referring to a variety of acts that include, but are not limited to, mass murder under the aegis of a polity and/or its leaders.
An illustration of three very clear, distinct acts within the definition of each term:
Troops surrendered and disarmed, being slaughtered by the captors, is an unambiguous war crime.
The Nazi regime identifying and killing everyone of specifically Jewish descent, religiously observant or not, was unambiguously genocide.
The Nazi policy of systematically imprisoning and/or killing everyone identified as being homosexual was an unambiguous atrocity.
So what are the Russians doing?
War crimes, mostly. Probably many also fall within the various legal definitions of atrocities.
Legally, they're not committing genocide, in that Ukrainian nationality is not synonymous with shared ancestry - in fact, Ukraine has a variety of citizens with various ethnic identities and cultures, similar to many nations. Ukrainian citizens of Russian descent are being victimized with the same ferocity as Ukrainians of Greek and Turkic (Gagauz) descent.
All of these inhumane acts can be held accountable.
Clarity in defining the terms, collecting the evidence, and presenting proof to a court with jurisdiction will matter.
The rights of Ukraine and the rest of the world to hold Russians from the level of private, to P* himself, accountable for these crimes, must not be abrogated in any agreement of terms to end hostilities.
Literally, the future of humanity depends upon it.
somberly,
Bright
= new reply since forum marked as read
