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Defining Genocide: Defining History?, Deborah Mayersen

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Defining 'genocide' has been a contentious task for historians. Many eminent scholars have argued that it is most useful to work with the legal definition of genocide accepted by the United Nations in 1948, and upon which the Convention on the Prevention and the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was established. Others have proposed that an alternative definition, broader and less legalistic than the UN definition, would be more useful. However, it is clear on both sides of the debate that it is a choice loaded with consequence. Historians who accept the legal definition of genocide as most appropriate …