OTTAWA — When Philippe Sands saw headlines in British media about Canada’s National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls using the term “genocide” in its report, he understood immediately the impact it would have. Overall, the inquiry grounds its analysis in the work of Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide in the 1930s and was instrumental in developing the Genocide Convention. Both concepts became part of international law, but they take fundamentally different approaches. Lemkin’s concept of genocide, Sands says, focuses not on the killing of individuals but on the destruction of groups. The problem with putting so much focus on genocide, Sands argues, is that — as Lauterpacht warned — it can entrench a group-versus-group dynamic.

Source: National Post June 04, 2019 21:16 UTC