The United Nations defined genocide in Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, otherwise known as the Genocide Convention. Article II defines the crime of genocide as:
In the present Convention, genocide 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; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Defined, but Not Prevented
Although genocide is internationally recognized as a crime, which events are deemed genocide is debated; action to prevent it is not evident. Tragically, while genocide is perpetuated in real-time, foreign governments and even the UN are slow to—or intentionally avoid—referring to such violence by its name. It is important that citizens of an interconnected world know and recognize past atrocities, present violent acts against innocent people, and future warning signs of genocidal ideology.