Genocide is the killing of men who are currently alive.
If one can say that one can kill a man who has not yet been conceived, by stopping his hypothetical future birth, then every form of contraception is murder, nay, the simple election not to have sex or otherwise procreate is then murder.
Do you not see the difference between forced sterilization (removing a person's ability to procreate) and contraception (giving a person the ability to have sex without procreating, which they can choose to change later)?
Of course I do, simply not by the argument that forced sterilization is genocide, an argument which necessitate that one can “kill” a not yet existing man by stopping his future existence.
The argument of genocide of course does not imply that the man who is sterilized is killed so long as he be allowed to live after the sterilization, but rather that his future, hypothetical offspring is, because it would now never come to be.
The comparison I made was with forced foreskin removal and forced dental correction, something that can also not be undone.
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, 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 its physical 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.
Then I see nothing wrong with genocide per sē if (d) fall under it, for by this definition, the Dutch goverment's plan to hand out free condoms to teenagers is a form of genocide, as it is a measure intended to stop births within the group of Dutchmen.
As usual, U.N. definitions are made without much thought, and quickly lead to the absurd when being held to even the slightest of inspection — it is almost as if it be a forum of very emotional men, who put very little thought into what they are doing.
If we say that stopping future births rather is problematic, then most forms of sex education are problematic.
> the Dutch goverment's plan to hand out free condoms to teenagers is a form of genocide, as it is a measure intended to stop births within the group of Dutchmen.
That would be perhaps true if the Dutch government were planning to give out free condoms only to white people or only to black people or only to blonds or only to christians etc. If they are universally giving out condoms, then they are obviously not trying to destroy any particular ethnic or national group inside their own country - the obvious limit to the UN definition.
Then they are only giving them out to the “ethnicity” called “the Dutchman”.
But this another matter of why I'm never very impressed with any definition that names the pseudoscientific concept of “ethnicity” — it is of course entirely an arbitrary thing what is and isn't classified as a separate “ethnicity” much like how the difference between a dialect and a separate language is of course one of politics, not science.
If only the province of Frisia were to have a plan for handing out such condoms, would that qualify as genocide of the Frisians then, which some claim is a different ethnicity for historical reasons? Are the inhabitants of each city perhaps a different ethnicity?
I would argue that a plan for handing out condoms only with proof of citizenship could be suspect of an attempt at ethnic cleansing. Similarly, if the central government of the Netherlands passed a law to hand out free condoms only in some particular province that may be suspect as well, especially one that has been considered of a different ethnicity.
However, if the local authorities in Frisia were to implement such a plan, that would be closer to the first case of universal measures, since the authorities in Frisia shouldn't be expected to hand out condoms in other provinces. Of course, if it turned out that the measure was in fact planned by the central government and passed off as a local idea, that would again move the needle towards being suspicious.
In general, intent matters - that is why the law can't be formalized mathematically. If a country is targeting some group that it has historically considered "different" (regardless of how questionable the difference is) with some kind of measure which may have negative consequences, that measure should receive scrutiny, and the context should be identified. For example, giving poor people condoms may be an attempt at population control in one country, while in another country it may be a democratically enacted benefit.
We are far away from providing mathematically clear definitions of legal concepts such as genocide, murder, theft, fraud and anything you like. There are always surprising subtleties, and intent and context are always going to be a part of the definition.
> I would argue that a plan for handing out condoms only with proof of citizenship could be suspect of an attempt at ethnic cleansing. Similarly, if the central government of the Netherlands passed a law to hand out free condoms only in some particular province that may be suspect as well, especially one that has been considered of a different ethnicity.
>However, if the local authorities in Frisia were to implement such a plan, that would be closer to the first case of universal measures, since the authorities in Frisia shouldn't be expected to hand out condoms in other provinces. Of course, if it turned out that the measure was in fact planned by the central government and passed off as a local idea, that would again move the needle towards being suspicious.
This is a distinction you make, but not a distinction the U.N. definition makes, which shows that you, much as I do, do not find the definition credible.
The U.N. definition does not factor in supranationality as a condition.
> In general, intent matters
Perhaps, but that difference is not given in the U.N. definition.
> that is why the law can't be formalized mathematically.
Then the definition should have never been offered as a rebuttal.
> If a country is targeting some group that it has historically considered "different" (regardless of how questionable the difference is) with some kind of measure which may have negative consequences, that measure should receive scrutiny, and the context should be identified. For example, giving poor people condoms may be an attempt at population control in one country, while in another country it may be a democratically enacted benefit.
All of this goes far beyond the original definition and is quite ad hoc.
I suspect that if further challenges and exceptions be raised against all these further rules, that more ad hoc rules are further and further added.
> We are far away from providing mathematically clear definitions of legal concepts such as genocide, murder, theft, fraud and anything you like. There are always surprising subtleties, and intent and context are always going to be a part of the definition.
Indeed we are, so perhaps the definition should not have been offered as if it actually be meaningful and the U.N. should drop the prætence of it's having “definitions” and “rules” for what is clearly simply “we rule on a case by case basis, mostly on our gut feeling.”
And that is too how laws work. I find that in practice the written text of the law is largely irrelevant vis à vis the gut feeling of whatever man vested with the power to interpret the law and I believe that not much would change in practice if entire law books were simply replaced with “The judge may do as he will and punish what he finds immoral on a case by case basis.”
Rule of law is almost always a veil for rule of men.
> Perhaps, but that difference is not given in the U.N. definition.
Yes, it is. The UN's 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines it explicitly with intent in mind:
"... genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group..."
> Perhaps, but that difference is not given in the U.N. definition.
Of course it is! The definition explicitly says "any of the following acts committed with the intent to [...]".
One more thing that the definition says that I hadn't even noticed and that significantly simplifies my examples, and immediately makes your example clearly NOT genocide, is that point (d) talks about imposing reproductive restrictions, which offering free condoms will never do.
> All of this goes far beyond the original definition and is quite ad hoc.
Yes, I was going beyond the strict definition of genocide and exploring similar concepts. The idea of defining what "ethnic groups" etc. means by historical precedent is probably the exact intent of the UN definition, though.
> And that is too how laws work. I find that in practice the written text of the law is largely irrelevant vis à vis the gut feeling of whatever man vested with the power to interpret the law and I believe that not much would change in practice if entire law books were simply replaced with “The judge may do as he will and punish what he finds immoral on a case by case basis.”
This is completely wrong for 99% of law, and might be slightly true for a few aspects of criminal law. In 99% of cases, the judge is ruling entirely on the law, there is no moral cause to be explored.
You continue to conflate "handing out condoms" with forced sterilization. The two are not the same thing.
If you permanently and compulsorily sterilized everyone in Frisia, yes, that'd be a genocide. Giving them condoms they can voluntarily and reversibly use is not.
In some extreme cases, it may turn out that a country is attempting to reduce a particular population by providing what appears as benefits. Probably free condoms are far too voluntary and ineffectual to come even close, but still - if anyone attempted it with the distinct intent of reducing some specific population, it could be somewhere in the neighborhood of ethnic cleansing.
I'm simply saying that by the U.N.'s definition of “genocide”, handing out condoms can be construed as such, and that the definition is therefore not worth much, or rather, that following it's definition, genocide is not problematic per sē, as it does not necessarily involve the involuntary taking of human life.
If one can say that one can kill a man who has not yet been conceived, by stopping his hypothetical future birth, then every form of contraception is murder, nay, the simple election not to have sex or otherwise procreate is then murder.