WORDS AND CRIMES.

• Author: Sands, Philippe
• Position: Genocide

In recent times the horrendous treatment of the Uighur community has received the attention it requires. Some assert that a genocide is being perpetuated by China, by reported sterilisations, displacements, mass incarcerations and other inhumanities. Voices are raised, demarches prepared, a complaint lodged with the International Criminal Court.

The use of the word 'genocide' attracts attention like no other. It is unique, in opening the imagination, the pinnacle of criminal horrors, the desire to destroy a group in whole or in part. Other terms, including 'crimes against humanity', which focuses instead on the protection of individuals, do not carry the same dread resonance, or attract headlines. The focus on the G word--almost a reverence - is regrettable. It skews our responses to other acts of mass atrocity, leaving the unfortunate impression that 'crimes against humanity' or war crimes are somehow less terrible. How did this happen?

It was seventy-five years ago that Rafael Lemkin, a remarkable Polish jurist, invented the term 'genocide'. He amalgamated the Greek word genos (tribe or race) and the Latin word cicle (killing), to create an obligation to protect groups. His focus was on Jews, Poles and Roma. He hoped to introduce the word into the charter of the Nuremberg tribunal, alongside 'crimes against humanity', but failed. He did get it into the indictment of the individual defendants, as a war crime, and persuade three of the four Allied prosecution teams to argue that the Nazis committed genocide - but the Americans resisted, and the famous judgment makes no mention of it. Lemkin did not give up. Through the UN he persuaded the world to negotiate a convention on the prevention and punishment of genocide, adopted in 1948 as the world's first modern human rights treaty.

For fifty years, nothing much happened to apply the new rules. Then along came Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and in the mid-1990s the term gained a new lease of life. Two new tribunals were created by the UN Security Council, and then the ICC came into being. Prosecutors at these and other courts came to understand that victims wanted their crimes to be labelled as a genocide. Anything less was not seen as being sufficiently grave.

Over time, a hierarchy has emerged. This has curious consequences. In Britain, the Holocaust Day Memorial Trust encourages remembrance of the Holocaust and subsequent genocides, but only if they have been recognised by international courts. The...