Editing Ethnic cleansing (section)

== Definitions ==
The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to [[Security Council Resolution 780]] defined ethnic cleansing as:

{{blockquote|a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas", [noting that in the former [[Yugoslavia]]] " 'ethnic cleansing' has been carried out by means of murder, torture, [[arbitrary arrest and detention]], extra-judicial executions, [[war rape|rape]] and sexual assaults, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and wanton destruction of property. Those practices constitute [[crimes against humanity]] and can be assimilated to specific [[war crime]]s. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the [[Genocide Convention]].<ref>{{cite web |date=May 27, 1994 |title=Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 780 (1992) |url=https://www.refworld.org/legal/resolution/unsc/1994/en/113325 |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |publisher=United Nations Security Council |page=33 |format=PDF}} Paragraph 129</ref><ref name="SCRes780-Report-130">{{cite web |title=Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 780 (1992) |date=May 27, 1994 |url=https://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/1994/674 |publisher=United Nations Security Council |format=PDF |page=33 <!--paragraph 130--> |quote=Upon examination of reported information, specific studies and investigations, the Commission confirms its earlier view that 'ethnic cleansing' is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. To a large extent, it is carried out in the name of misguided nationalism, historic grievances and a powerful driving sense of revenge. This purpose appears to be the occupation of territory to the exclusion of the purged group or groups. This policy and the practices of warring factions are described separately in the following paragraphs. |access-date=May 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514200247/http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S%2F1994%2F674 |archive-date=May 14, 2011 |url-status=live }} Paragraph 130.</ref>}}

The official United Nations definition of ethnic cleansing is "rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or [[intimidation]] to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group."<ref>Hayden, Robert M. (1996) [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2501233 "Schindler's Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160411202522/http://www.jstor.org/stable/2501233 |date=April 11, 2016 }}. ''[[Slavic Review]]'' 55 (4), 727–48.</ref> As a category, ethnic cleansing encompasses a continuum or spectrum of policies. In the words of [[Andrew Bell-Fialkoff]], "ethnic cleansing ... defies easy definition. At one end it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population exchange while at the other it merges with deportation and genocide. At the most general level, however, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the expulsion of a population from a given territory."<ref>Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, [http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19930601faessay5199/andrew-bell-fialkoff/a-brief-history-of-ethnic-cleansing.html "A Brief History of Ethnic Cleansing"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040203190219/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19930601faessay5199/andrew-bell-fialkoff/a-brief-history-of-ethnic-cleansing.html |date=February 3, 2004 }}, ''Foreign Affairs'' 72 (3): 110, Summer 1993. Retrieved May 20, 2006.</ref>

Terry Martin has defined ethnic cleansing as "the forcible removal of an ethnically defined population from a given territory" and as "occupying the central part of a continuum between genocide on one end and nonviolent pressured ethnic emigration on the other end."<ref name="martin">Martin, Terry (1998). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/235168 "The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing"] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724042805/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/235168 |date=July 24, 2019}}. ''[[The Journal of Modern History]]'' 70 (4), 813–861. pg. 822</ref>

[[Gregory Stanton]], the founder of [[Genocide Watch]], has criticised the rise of the term and its use for events that he feels should be called "genocide": because "ethnic cleansing" has no legal definition, its media use can detract attention from events that should be prosecuted as genocide.<ref name="Sousa2016"/><ref name="Singleterry2010">Douglas Singleterry (April 2010), "Ethnic Cleansing and Genocidal Intent: A Failure of Judicial Interpretation?", ''Genocide Studies and Prevention'' 5, 1</ref>

=== As a crime under international law ===
There is no international treaty that specifies a specific crime of ethnic cleansing;<ref>{{cite journal |first=Ward |last=Ferdinandusse |url=http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol15/No5/9.pdf |title=The Interaction of National and International Approaches in the Repression of International Crimes |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705180121/http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol15/No5/9.pdf |archive-date=July 5, 2008 |journal=The European Journal of International Law |volume=15 |number=5 |year=2004 |page=1042, note 7|doi=10.1093/ejil/15.5.1041 |doi-access=free }}</ref> however, ethnic cleansing in the broad sense—the forcible deportation of a population—is defined as a [[crime against humanity]] under the statutes of both the [[International Criminal Court]] (ICC) and the [[International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia]] (ICTY).<ref>[https://www.un.org/law/icc/statute/99_corr/2.htm "Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080113100723/http://www.un.org/law/icc/statute/99_corr/2.htm |date=January 13, 2008 }}, Article 7; [https://www.un.org/icty/legaldoc-e/index.htm ''Updated Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806141633/http://www.un.org/icty/legaldoc-e/index.htm |date=August 6, 2009 }}, Article 5.</ref> The gross human rights violations integral to stricter definitions of ethnic cleansing are treated as separate crimes falling under public international law of [[crimes against humanity]] and in certain circumstances [[genocide]].<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Daphna |last1=Shraga |first2=Ralph |last2=Zacklin |url=http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol5/No3/art4-01.html |title=The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927233818/http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol5/No3/art4-01.html |archive-date=September 27, 2007 |journal=The European Journal of International Law |volume=15 |number=3 |year=2004}}</ref> There are also situations, such as the [[expulsion of Germans after World War II]], where ethnic cleansing has taken place without legal redress (see ''[[Preussische Treuhand v. Poland]]''). ''[[Timothy v. Waters]]''<!-- a person, not a court case --> argues that similar ethnic cleansing could go unpunished in the future.<ref>[http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4600&context=expresso Timothy V. Waters, "On the Legal Construction of Ethnic Cleansing"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181106100246/http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4600&context=expresso |date=November 6, 2018 }}, Paper 951, 2006, [[University of Mississippi]] School of Law. Retrieved on 2006, 12–13</ref>
<!-- The emergence of ethnic cleansing as a distinct category of war crime has been a somewhat complex process. Each individual element of a programme of ethnic cleansing could be considered as an individual violation of humanitarian law—a killing here, a house-burning there—thus missing the systematic way in which such violations were perpetrated with a single aim in mind. International courts consider individual incidents in the light of a possible pattern of ethnic cleansing. In the Yugoslav case, the ICTY considers the widespread massacres and abuses of human rights in Bosnia and Kosovo as part of an overall "[[joint criminal enterprise]]" to carve out ethnically pure states in the region; however, many alleged "ethnic cleansings" in the past do not fit the modern definition of "crimes against humanity"; the post-World War II [[German expulsions]] were sanctioned by the international agreement at [[Potsdam conference]], requiring that the actions proceed humanely. -->

=== Mutual ethnic cleansing ===
'''Mutual ethnic cleansing''' occurs when two groups commit ethnic cleansing against minority members of the other group within their own territories. For instance in the 1920s, Turkey expelled its Greek minority and Greece expelled its Turkish minority following the [[Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)|Greco-Turkish War]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pinxten |first1=Rik |last2=Dikomitis |first2=Lisa |title=When God Comes to Town: Religious Traditions in Urban Contexts |date=1 May 2009 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-84545-920-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hMF-mjzt1fsC |access-date=31 December 2021 |language=en}}</ref> Other examples where mutual ethnic cleansing occurred include the [[First Nagorno-Karabakh War]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cornell |first1=Svante E. |title=Religion as a factor in Caucasian conflicts |journal=Civil Wars |date=September 1998 |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=46–64 |doi=10.1080/13698249808402381 |language=en |issn=1369-8249}}</ref> and the population transfers by the Soviets of Germans, Poles, and Ukrainians after [[World War II]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Snyder |first1=Timothy |title=The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 |date=11 July 2004 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-10586-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xSpEynLxJ1MC |access-date=31 December 2021 |language=en}}</ref>