Ämnet för min C-uppsats handlar om diskussionen om vad som kan ...

situation: “It is a crime when Tehlirian murders an individual, but his oppressor was not regardedas a criminal for having murdered over one million individuals.” 29While Lemkin had a much broader definition of the term, the United Nations chose to adopta much narrower one. The present Article II of the UN Convention on the Prevention andPunishment of the Crime of Genocide reads:In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent todestroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:a) Killing members of the group;b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about itsphysical destruction in whole or in part;d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 30Lemkin’s definition, in addition, also included political and social classes, something which theSoviet Union and its allies opposed and later succeeded in having excluded from theconvention. 31 In consequence, the current Genocide Convention is regarded inadequate foracademic research as well as for classification of individual cases. Thus, researchers have theirown alternative definitions of the term. The political scientist Robert Melson refers instead topartial and total genocides. 32 By total, Melson refers to cases where there is an intent to partially ortotally annihilate a certain group or massacre a large portion of its members, at the same time thatits cultural and social identity is destroyed. A partial genocide, on the other hand, intends to usethe massacres to force a change in the identity or policy of a group, without its annihilation.Melson mentions three total genocides, namely the Armenian, the Jewish and the Romany. AlainDestexhe asserts instead that only the three cases of Armenians, Jews and Tutsis (Rwanda) are tobe regarded as genocide, while in the Bosnian case, even though the Serbs committed crimesagainst humanity, the aim was territorial conquest, not annihilation of a people. 33 Similarvariations of the definition can be seen with other researchers. 34Genocide is often related to revolutions and wars. All the above mentioned total genocideshave occurred in the turmoil created by a revolution or/and a war. In regard to the genocides ofthe 20 th century, Melson asserts that these were implemented after a revolution which drastically29 Gerner and Karlsson, 2005, p. 67. Lemkin, 2002, p. 371. Tehlirian was acquitted from all charges, since thecourt argued that Talaat, having received a death penalty in absentia for war crimes committed the Great War,was regarded de facto dead.30 UN, High Commissioner of Human Rights, 1948.31 Weitz, 2003, p. 9.32 Melson, 1992, p. 24-26.33 Destexhe, 1995, p. viii.34 Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990, p. 14-23; Fein, 1992, p. 3; Staub, New Jersey, 2002, p. 11; Valentino, 2004,p.10; Weitz, 2003, 9-11.11