Eric Markusen :
'What is Genocide? -- a search for answers'

The twentieth century has been aptly called "the century of genocide." However, despite the scale of genocidal violence and a growing number of scholars and research centers devoted to studying it, there is still disagreement about how to define and conceptualize genocide. This essay attempts to clarify the meaning of genocide in a number of ways. First, it identifies issues and dilemmas that confront efforts to define genocide. Second, it examines the conception of genocide developed by Raphael Lemkin, who invented the term "genocide" in 1944 and who contributed to the establishment of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime and Punishment of Genocide, in which the concept of genocide was legally defined, in 1948. Third, it analyses the Genocide Convention's definition of genocide and several criticisms of it. Fourth, it examines recent jurisprudence from the United Nations ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, both of which have applied the Genocide Convention's definition in criminal