Genocide and massacre can be difficult to distinguish, but intent is key. Genocide involves a coordinated plan to destroy foundations of a national group's life to annihilate the group itself. Massacre typically involves excessive violence carried out under military orders. Propaganda has long been used to incite violence against target groups. The crime of incitement to genocide can be prosecuted even without actual genocide occurring, as it demonstrates the potential to spur violence. Premeditation is also a crucial element of genocide, as it requires advance planning and intent to destroy a group in whole or in part. The distinction between hate speech and direct incitement is important under international law.

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Genocide
Prologue
Is there any difference between the word genocide and the word massacre? How can an
individual or a group of individuals under certain circumstances, lead and persuade a large group
of people to commit and perpetrate unspeakable crimes against humanity? How can a human
conceive and implement such brutalities? And, is it correct to say that the premeditation is the
key of such phenomenon?
These are only a few questions which as a jurisprudence student I have been asking myself since
I started this educational path. It is now essential to critically define and distinguish the word
genocide from the word massacre.
Even today we are not sure of the precise circumstances, much less the exact date when the word
genocide was coined. Raphael Lemkin was responsible for directly linking, several years before
the drafting of the Genocide Convention, his new word with what had happened to the
Armenians. An event that led Lemkin to create a “new crime”, a crime that was recognized
indictable by the international law as such, only a few decades later, when the civil war severely
hit the former Yugoslavia, and it was necessary to establish an international criminal tribunal to
prosecute the crime of genocide.
We know that Raphael Lemkin formed the word genocide by combining Geno, with Cide,
derived from the Latin word for killing, in Chapter IX, “Genocide”, of his 1944 book, Axis Rule
in Occupied Europe, Lemkin says on page 79, that he coined a new term, “to denote an old
practice in its modern development.” He explained that, “genocide does not necessarily mean the
immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of

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a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming the
destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the
groups themselves. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions
involved are directed against individuals, not neither individual capacity, but as members of the
national group.” In the last chapter we will see how there is a correlation between the word intent
and the word premeditation and how important these two words are to identify the crime of
genocide.
On the other hand, it is now necessary to draft the concept of massacre. We know that murder is
a crime which is well defined and understood in every State. In Common Law, we have the word
voluntary manslaughter to describe a crime which has committed without deliberation,
premeditation and malice, and involuntary manslaughter which is the unlawful killing of one
other human being without intent. In Civil Law, we face the differences between homicide with
dolus (involuntary manslaughter) and homicide with culpa (voluntary manslaughter). As we can
see, the notion of homicide is a visceral element of the word massacre. While in most of the
cases, genocide appears as a campaign of persecution and elimination of a particular target of
people by a government, the massacre goes beyond any form of cataloguing, being based on
military orders typically involving “overkill and ruthless violence”. We have to remark how the
differences between the word genocide and massacre are based on a thin line, a line which
guarantees the equilibrium of this difficult matter.
In order to understand how these two phenomena can coexist and develop from common
denominators, such the intensity of a total war, an economic crisis and the increasing violence
which grows in all these cases, we ought to find out how an individual or a group of individuals
under certain circumstances can lead and persuade a large group of people to commit and

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perpetrate unspeakable crimes against humanity and what reasons lead a group of people to obey
to such ruthless orders.
Thinking back to the past, we can claim that propaganda, since the origin of the great
empires, has always been used as an instrument of fear, a tool of manipulation, a strategy
designed to instigate violence against a particular target of people. We can define the word
instigate as the act of encouraging or persuading another to commit an offense by way of
communication, for example by employing broadcasts, drawings, speeches, images or
publications. According with international law, we consider public, an information which is
communicated to a number of individuals in a public place or to members of a population of
large by such means as the mass media. In order to demonstrate and to delineate the word
incitement to genocide or to massacre, it is indispensable to prove the relation among the speaker
and the listener. It is an inevitable and deserved passage that has to be proved through the well
known principle of the “causal connection” between the act of speaking and the act of
understanding by the listeners. Moreover, public incitement to genocide or to massacre can be
prosecuted even if genocide or massacre is never perpetrated.
The question arises spontaneously. How can we prosecute the crime of incitement of genocide if
crime has not yet been committed? The jurisprudence faces this problem recalling the principle
of the “inchoate crime”, through which international law refers to the “potential to spur
genocidal violence”. Attempt to perpetrate a crime involves trying to commit a crime but failing
to complete the intended actions. Through this essential principle, in December 2003 the
International Crimes Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR) handed down its verdict. The judges who were
presiding over the tribunal, condemned and convicted exponents of Rwanda genocide for direct
and public incitement to mass murder. The judges declared: “Without a fireman, machete or any

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other physical weapon, you cause the death of thousands of innocent civilians.” At the end of the
verdict, the judges noted: “This case raises important principles concerning the role of the media
and the role of the massive propaganda, which have not been addressed at the level of
international criminal justice since Nuremberg and the final consideration which drew the
International Military Tribunal (IMT) to establish a precedent in the history of the jurisprudence,
convicting Julius Streicher (editor of the anti-Semite newspaper Der Strumer ), to death by
hanging, because considered as direct responsible for the genocide of the Jewish people, and
crimes against humanity. Streicher’s conviction drafted and set the link between inflammatory
speech and criminal action in international law. Through his periodical, Julius Streicher had
violently solicited anger and hatred against a particular target of people. The IMT held that
incitement to genocide is a crime under international law and that it constitutes crimes against
humanity.
As examined in the previous paragraph it is necessary to stress the difference between hate
speech and direct and public incitement to commit genocide. The Rwanda Media Case brought
to light the fact that incitement to commit genocide required a calling on the audience, to take
action of some kind. To convict a person of incitement to commit crime, it is sufficient that the
information to perpetrate the crime is passed by the solicitor from a public platform to several
individuals. In a 2001 Joint Statement, the Un, OSCE and OAS Special Mandates on the right of
freedom of expression set out a number of conditions which hate speech laws should respect.
One of these principles claims that, “no one should be penalized for the dissemination of hate
speech unless it has been shown that they did so with the intention of inciting discrimination,
hostility or violence.”

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Hence, demonstrating that there is a connection among the propagandist and the listener is
nowadays extremely complex. Proving such causal connection involves a careful inspection of
allusions, metaphors and other linguistic stratagems.
“But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a
simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a
parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or not voice, the people can always be brought to
the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,
and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It
works the same in any country.” (Hermann Goering)
With these words, Hermann Goering, military leader, and leading member of the Nazi party
briefly explained how people can be affected by propaganda and by falsification of reality from
the governors and how easy it is to produce the differentiation, denigration, discrimination and
hostility necessary as a first step to commit genocide. It is appropriate to point out that through
this question we do not want to analyze the complex field of the human psyche and its
vulnerability, argument that does not compete us and that would partially drift us apart from our
argumentation.
Looking back in the history, we are aware of the fact that one of the first “genocide” happened
during Nero’s kingdom, whom, fearful for his throne, ordered the “massacre of the innocents”.
His attempt to kill all the male children of the House of David can be seen as a clear example of
genocide. Nero tortured the early Christians and threw them to the lions with the unquestionable
intention of wiping out and destroying this particular target of people. In the 16th century, with

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the complicity of thousands of combatants, the Spanish Conquistadores killed horde of Carib
Indians, contributing to the destruction of a racial people.
Decades after, nearly two million of Armenians were driven from their homes (embezzled by
Turkey’s government), to die of starvation in the desert. (It has to be considered as the first
modern form of genocide. It was systematic, controlled and efficient). Christian Armenians were
a target, with a long and proud origins. The intensity of total war helped to make genocidal
conditions possible. As earlier outlined, an economic crisis might justify the increasing violence
and hatred against a particular target of people. Such desperation, in a rural and impoverished
economy (Germany 1930’s, Cambodia 1970’s etc,), might enhances the ability of leaders to
committing genocide and crimes against humanity. War, also can generate an ambient of terror,
feeling that can determine and lead to drastic consequences, justifying a genocide. Armenians as
a group who were quite distinctly ethnically felt victim to both stereotyping discrimination as
well violence as this nationalism grew.
These are only few of the countless example of genocide happened through history. Although,
the word genocide has been devalued by inflationary usage, I prefer to see it used in its proper
place, for actions designed to eliminate and wipe out a bound and determined ethnic group. Still,
the definition of genocide is blur. Nevertheless, we can claim with absolutely certainty that the
crime of genocide is a component of the more general and problematic concept of crimes against
humanity.
We have now to face with the last obstacle. Is it the premeditation a key element of the crime of
genocide? And if yes, why none has ever pointed out its importance? In this last paragraph, I will

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try to let the reader understand the importance of the element of the premeditation and the
influence that it has covered in the developing of the word genocide through the years.
Genocide itself, before being considered a crime against humanity, is a cowardly act of
persecution and elimination of any identifiable group sanctioned by a super ordinate authority, a
political decision veiled by a philosophical doctrine. This aspect is sufficient to explain the
concept of premeditation, notion present into any form of human-thought.
We know that premeditation is the intent to carry out an action. It is now essential to demonstrate
how the concept of premeditation represents a key element in the explanation of the crime of
genocide. As we have previously seen, genocide cannot be committed without a consolidate
strategic planning. It would be extremely improbable that in absence of such element, a court
would glimpse the presence of the crime of genocide. Proof of an existing plan to wipe out a
particular target of people, selected on certain discriminatory grounds, should make it easier to
prove the genocidal intent. Hence, the intent (dolus specialis), of destroying in whole or in part a
specific group is strictly related with the crime of genocide. The intent of killing and completely
extirpate a target of people. To clarify this statement, we have to go back to the article II of the
Convention on the prevention of the crime of genocide, adopted by the general assembly of the
United Nations on 9 December 1948. The article II, let.c of such Convention says:
c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical- destruction in whole or in part.
If there is premeditation, there is not negligence or omission. Premeditation is a rational
instrument of intent, an intent to destroy in whole or in part, and the offender must intend to
wipe out and eliminate a specific group that is defined by nationality, race, ethnicity or

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religion. Raphael Lemkin claimed that genocide involved the destruction on political
institutions, economic life, language and culture. It was not clear if the concept of destruction
involved a physical or a biological action in order to get rid of the “enemy”. Intervening on
this matter, The International Law Commission explained that the destruction in question is
the material destruction of a group either by physical or by biological means, not the
destruction of the national, linguistic, religious, cultural or other identity of a particular
group.
It is true that the concept of premeditation itself is fastened with the word “deliberately” (art.
II, Let. b of the Genocide Convention), indicating not only “the intent of exterminating”, but
even the impositions of certain conditions direct to destroy a target of people.
In conclusion, we can claim that the crime of genocide, as a crime against humanity, cannot
exist without the concept of premeditation and intent to “destroy”.
It is meaningful to notice how still today the word genocide, due to its unscrupulous and
erroneous use, does not have a juridical solidity, clambering through the garbled bureaucratic
path of international law and its respective apparatus. It would be appropriate in my opinion,
reshape the crime of genocide, reallocating it as a crime perpetrated against a particular target of
people because their ethnicity (eliminationism), and distinguish it from the crime of
denationalization, terms that does not connote biological destruction.

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