Genocide

Genocide (pronounced jen-uh-sahyd)

(1) A special class of mass-murder, the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group, usually by a state; the systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, or nationality.

(2) In casual (and imprecise) use, by extension, the systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on other grounds.

(3) In casual (and imprecise) use, by extension, the systematic suppression of a cultural identity, language etc on the basis of cultural, racial or ethnic origin (often expressed as culturicide or cultural genocide).

1944: The construct is géno + cide.  Géno is from the Ancient Greek γένος (genos) (race; kind) from the primitive Indo-European gene- (give birth, beget (with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups)); it was cognate with the Latin gēns (tribe, clan).  The suffix cide (cīda) is from the Latin caedere (to kill; a killing).  The creation of the word genocide is attributed to Polish-born US lawyer Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) who used it in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1943-1944) in reference to the Nazi extermination of the Jews of Europe.  In the English-speaking world, there were the pedants who didn’t approve of the mixing of Latin and Greek, noting the proper formation would be genticide, the construct being the Latin gēns (a race, nation, people; a clan, family (oblique stem: gent-)) +‎ -cide and is a hypothetical Latin etymon of the form genticīdium (from gēns +‎ -cīdium (the suffix denoting “killer”; “cutter”) +‎ -ium (from the Latin -um (neuter singular morphological suffix)).  Genocidal is the adjective.

There was earlier, in a similar sense, the French populicide (variously cited as dating from 1792 or 1799) from French populicide, a construct made necessary by the excesses in the aftermath of the 1789 French Revolution.  This was later adopted in German as Völkermeuchelnden (genocidal) and was known in English by 1893 as the anglicized folk-murdering.  The less rigorous ethnocide is attested from 1970 in French and 1974 in English.

Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959).

The word genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), a Polish-Jewish lawyer who had immersed himself in study after, as a student, being shocked to discover there existed nothing in international law to prosecute the Ottoman leaders who were complicit in what is now (though not by all) often called the Armenian Genocide (1915-1917) in which over a million are thought to have been killed.  Essentially, Lemkin identified the doctrine of sovereign immunity (the idea that what happens within nation boundaries must be regarded as purely internal matters) as the reason state-sanctioned mass-murder had such a long history and it could be stopped only if this doctrine was subject to some limitations.

In November 1944, Lemkin’s book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe was published.  It was a review of the legal implications of the consequences of the Nazi Germany New Order administrations in the occupied nations and contained the first definitional framework of genocide.  His point was that genocide did not of necessity mean “the immediate destruction of a nation” which was a concept of course familiar from thousands of years of warfare but instead signified “a coordinated plan of different actions aimed at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.”  That formulation was something specific to the circumstances of the holocaust, a process which, for almost a decade, progressed from the Nazi state introducing laws which sought to marginalize and exclude the Jews from Germany’s cultural and economic life to the building of an industrial system intended to murder every Jew in Europe, a process which was organic, a reaction to the circumstances at the time.  The Nazis, upon their assumption of power in 1933 had not even the vaguest plan of extermination, not because Hitler would have thought mass-murder on any scale unacceptable but because it was unimaginable that such a thing was possible.  What was planned was eradication, the forced migration of the Jews from what Germany was and what it was to become, what would now be described (in the literal sense rather than as the euphemism with which the phrase is now associated) as ethnic cleansing.  It was the circumstances of inter-war politics and later war-time realities which meant (1) that mass-emigration firstly within and later beyond Europe was not possible and (2) that under the Nacht und Nebel (night and fog) of war, the mass-murder of millions became possible.  As the word tends now to be used, between 1933 and 1942, a displacement of population became genocide.

Perhaps surprisingly given the perceptions of many, the word genocide did not figure large in the incitements served at the Nuremburg Trial (1946-1946), being mentioned not as one of the four counts but included in Count Three (War Crimes:  "...deliberate and systematic genocide, viz, the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people and national, racial or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles and Gypsies and others."

Judges' bench at the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945-1946.

Although the holocaust was the most monstrous matter to be tried at Nuremberg, any reluctance to include genocide as a separate count was understandable. Nothing quite like the International Military Tribunal (IMT) which convened at Nuremberg had ever been assembled and it was acknowledged at the time some of the matters with which the defendants were charged were based in retrospective law; they were being held to account for conduct which, at the time, was not unlawful.  Sensitive to this and the need to frame the incitements as close as possible to acknowledged legal norms, the prosecutors, mostly working lawyers for whom the primary concern was winning the case, tried as much as possible to avoid novelty in the incitement.  As it was, the document grew from a three-odd page draft in June to a final copy of sixty-five pages when served on the defendants.  The word genocide appeared just the once.

Genocide was in 1946 recognized as a crime under international law by the United Nations General Assembly and was codified as a crime in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention.  It expanded Lemkin’s definition, holding that genocide was “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(1) Killing members of the group.

(2) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

(3) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

(4) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

(5) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Genocide is defined in the same terms in the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as in the statutes of other international and hybrid jurisdictions.  Over one-hundred and fifty states have ratified the convention but the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has anyway ruled the convention embodies principles that are part of general customary international law so whether or not ratified, in legal theory, all states are bound by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law.  Many states have also criminalized genocide in their domestic law.  Technically, intent is the most contentious element in any genocide prosecution.  To succeed, intent must be a proven on the part of perpetrators physically to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group; cultural suppression or destruction is not genocide and nor is expulsion from territory. 

After Nuremberg, genocide was long applied only to the destruction of an ethnic group (as conventionally defined) although there has more recently been a debate about whether it applies only if killing of all members of the group is involved or if other means, such as dispersing the group to the point where shared cultural practices or identity are no longer possible also constitutes (an unqualified) genocide; the concepts of cultural genocide, linguistic genocide etc.  The crime has never needed to be absolute.  It has always been understood to include “systematic mass killing”, even if there’s not an intention absolutely to eradicate a group, thereby covering geographically localized events, the actions which in the Balkan wars of the 1990s came to be known as “ethnic cleansing”.  Where there is some purpose other than the actual destruction of a group, such as terrorizing the group or killing the population of a particular place irrespective of group membership, the more precise term is democide, the construct being the Ancient Greek δῆμος (demos) (people) +‎ -cide.  The conduct of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia in the late 1970s, because it wasn’t inherently or exclusively based on ethnic division, is thus, technically, probably a democide although such was the enormity of the awfulness of what happened that most probably find this a fine and needless distinction.

As many passages in sacred texts (including the Koran and the Bible) indicate, genocide, as a political imperative and military strategy, has a long and cross-cultural history in human civilization.  Although most attention is devoted to the most modern events with the highest death-toll (such as the holocaust, the still disputed matter of the Armenians in 1915 and the events in Rwanda in 1994), in a global sense, the most recent genocide which went closest to succeeding was the genocide of the Moriori, the indigenous people of the Chatham Islands (which lie to the east of New Zealand).  Invaded by the Maori in 1835, the Moriori were subject to mass murder, enslavement and a policy of deliberate cultural repression; the population which had once numbered close to two thousand by the 1870s shrinking to under a hundred.  In a sense that act of genocide did succeed, the last pure-blooded Moriori dying early in the twentieth century.

Eliminate, Exterminate & Eradicate

Eliminate (pronounced ih-lim-uh-neyt)

(1) To remove or get rid of, especially as being in some way undesirable.

(2) To omit, especially as being unimportant or irrelevant; leave out.

(3) To remove from further consideration or competition, especially by defeating in sport or other competitive contest.

(4) To eradicate or kill.

(5) In physiology, to void or expel from an organism.

(6) In mathematics, to remove (a quantity) from an equation by elimination.

(7) In sport, as elimination & eliminator (drag racing): category classifications. 

1560–70: From the Latin ēlīminātus (thrust out of the doors; expel), past participle of ēlīmināre, the construct being ē- (out) + līmin- (stem of līmen (threshold)) + -ātus (the Latin first/second-declension suffix (feminine -āta, neuter -ātum)).  The most commonly used form in Latin appears to have been ex limine (off the threshold).  Used literally at first, the sense of "exclude" was first attested in 1714; the now obsolete sense of "expel waste from the body" emerged circa 1795 although the general sense of an "expulsion of waste matter" is from 1855.  Eliminate is a verb, if used with an object, the verbs are eliminated & eliminating, eliminability, eliminant & eliminability are nouns and eliminable, eliminative and eliminatory are adjectives.

Exterminate (pronounced ik-stur-muh-neyt)

Totally to destroy (living things, especially pests or vermin); annihilate; extirpate.

1535–1545: From the Latin exterminātus, past participle of extermināre (to drive away (from terminus boundary)), perfect passive participle of exterminō, the construct being ex- + terminō (I finish, close, end), from terminus (limit, end).  In Late Latin there was also the sense "destroy" from the phrase ex termine (beyond the boundary), ablative of termen (boundary, limit, end).  The meaning "utterly to destroy" appeared in English only by the 1640s, a sense found earlier in equivalent words in French and in the Vulgate; earlier in this sense was the mid-fifteenth century extermine.  Exterminator actually came earlier: as early as circa 1400, the Late Latin exterminator (from past participle stem of exterminare) had the sense of "an angel who expells (people from a country) and, by 1848, as a “substance for ridding a place of rats etc) and by 1938 this was applied to a person whose job it was.  Exterminate is a verb, used with an object the verbs are exterminated & exterminating, exterminable, exterminative & exterminatory are adjectives and extermination & exterminator are nouns.

Eradicate (pronounced ih-rad-i-keyt)

(1) To remove or destroy utterly; extirpate.

(2) To erase by rubbing or by means of a chemical solvent or other agent.

(3) Of plants, to pull up by the roots.

1555–1565: From the Latin ērādīcātus (usually translated as “destroy utterly”; literally “pull up by the roots”), past participle of ērādīcāre (root out, extirpate, annihilate), the construct being ē- (out) + rādīc- (stem of rādīx (root) (genitive radicis)) + -ātus (the Latin first/second-declension suffix (feminine -āta, neuter -ātum)).  The assimilated form of ērādīcāre is derived from the primitive Indo-European wrād (branch, root) and from the same source, the native form of the same idea existed in mid-fifteenth century Middle English as outrōten (to root (something) out; eradicate).  A surprisingly recent creation in 1794 was ineradicable and within a few years, ineradicably.  Eradicate is a verb, eradicant is an adjective and noun, eradicated & eradicating are verbs (used with object), eradicable & eradicative are adjectives, eradicably is an adverb, eradication & eradicator are nouns.

Eliminate, exterminate and eradicate in the age of pandemics

In Modern English usage, eliminate, exterminate and eradicate are often used interchangeably despite differences in nuance.  This means also the wealth of synonyms the three enjoy are sometimes haphazardly used although some overlap does exist, the synonyms including: annihilate, expunge, abolish, erase, uproot, extinguish, efface, demolish, total, abate, liquidate, obliterate, trash, squash, purge, extirpate, scratch, slaughter, decimate, execute, massacre, abolish, erase, extirpate, destroy, oust, waive, ignore, defeat, cancel, exclude, disqualify, invalidate, drop, eject, expel, liquidate, omit, terminate, slay, discard & disregard.

In the (relatively) happy times before the emergence of SARS-Cov2's Delta variant, the New Zealand prime minister declared COVID-19 “eradicated but not eliminated” which did sound given that, regarding disease, the words have specific, technical meanings.  In the context of disease, eradication refers to the complete and permanent worldwide reduction to zero new cases through deliberate effort.  Elimination refers to the reduction to zero (or a very low defined target rate) of new cases in a defined geographical area, which can be any size, a province, country, continent or hemisphere.  As used by virologists and epidemiologists therefore, eradication is used in its normal conversational sense but elimination is applied with a specific technical meaning.  There is a quirk to this. The World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of smallpox in 1980 although small cultures remain in US and Russian research laboratories.  If these residual stocks are ever destroyed, the WHO may adopt some new term to distinguish between eradication in the wild and an absolute extermination from the planet.  Nobody seems now to believe COVID-19 will ever be eliminated, exterminated or eradicated.  It seems here to stay.

Defendants in the dock, International Military Tribunal (IMT, the main Nuremberg trial (1945-1946)). 

The meanings of eliminate, exterminate & eradicate, both in their English senses and in translation from German have been debated before.  Although not defined in law until the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), the newly (1944) created word genocide appeared in the indictments served at the main Nuremberg trial (1945-1946) upon those accused under count IV, crimes against humanity.  This attracted the interest of lawyers who noted the words exterminate and eliminate appear both in the academic and legal discussions about the novel concept of genocide and in translations of many documents from the Third Reich which related to the Jews.  Defense counsel probed what was meant by these words and whether, in original or translation, their actual meaning in the context of their use was in accord with what was meant when applied to genocide.  The etymological excursion didn’t much help the defendants, most of whom were hanged.  Hermann Göring also raised an objection to a translation from the German being rendered as "final solution to the Jewish problem" rather than "total solution" which, he argued, should compel the court to draw a different inference.  In both discussions, the judges concluded what was being discussed was mass-murder and the relative degree of applicability between synonyms was not a substantive point.

Professionals in the field of pest control actually stick more closely to classic etymology in their technical distinction between the two central words: extermination and eradication.  Extermination (from the Latin, exterminare meaning “out of the boundary” and related to the deity Terminus who presided over boundaries) means to drive the pests beyond the boundaries of the building.  It doesn’t of necessity mean the pests are all dead, just that they are no longer in the building.  Eradicate (from the Latin eradicare meaning to root out) refers to the processes leading to extermination, to bring to light the breeding spots, the places where the infestation has, so to speak, taken root.

Interahamwe

Interahamwe (pronounced in-ter-ah-ham-way or in-tra-ham-way)

A Hutu paramilitary organization.

1992: A constructed proper noun, described variously as (1) borrowed from a Rwanda-Rundi (a dialect of Kinyarwanda) term or (2) a creation to describe the paramilitary formation.  Literal translation is "those who work together" and is thus a euphemism, one based on the link to the Interhamwe’s preferred choice of weapons: farm tools and the machete.  The construct is intera (from the verb gutera), (to work) + hamwe (together) which is related to rimwe (one).

After the genocide

Flag of the Interahamwe.

Although most associated with the Rwandan genocide on 1994, the Interahamwe began as the innocuous youth wing of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND), then the Hutu ruling party of Rwanda.  However, like other some political youth movements (the Taliban in Pakistan; the Mandela United Football Club in South Africa et al), the circumstances of the times led to mission creep.

The Rwanda genocide had its origin in the Hutu-Tutsi civil war of 1990-1992.  As violence escalated, use of the word “Interahamwe” changed from a description of the youth group into a broad term applied to almost anyone engaged in the mass-murder of Tutsis, regardless of their age of membership of the MRND.  The translation as “those who work together” became a euphemism for “those who kill together”.  Sardonic forms are not rare in both military and paramilitary jargon; the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) category for suicide-bombers prematurely blown-up by their own malfunctioning devices is “work accident”.

Although their numbers are now much reduced, the Interahamwe retain the ambition to destabilize Rwanda and still operate from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the place to which they fled in late 1994.  From there and neighboring countries, along with other splinter groups such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), they conduct an insurgency against Rwanda although recent operations suggest they're as much concerned with the various criminal activities undertaken to ensure their survival as any political agenda.

Pogrom

Pogrom (pronounced puh-gruhm, puh-grom, poh-gruhm or poh-grom)

An organized persecution or massacre of a defined (usually ethnic or religious) group, historically and originally applied especially to attacks on the Jews.

1882: From the Yiddish פּאָגראָם‎ (pogrom) (organized massacre in Russia against a particular class or people, especially the Jews), from the Russian погро́м (pogróm & pogromu (devastation, destruction) the construct being по (po) (by, through, behind, after) (cognate with the Latin post) +‎ громи́ть (gromu or gromít) (thunder, roar; to smash, to sack; to destroy, devastate) from the primitive Indo-European imitative root ghrem (which endures in Modern English as grim).  The Russian derivatives are погро́мщик (pogrómščik) and погро́мщица (pogrómščica).  The literal translation of the Russian pogróm is destruction, devastation (of a town, country, as might happen in a war) and it’s the noun derivative of pogromít; po is the perfective prefix and gromít (to destroy, devastate) is a derivative of grom (thunder).

For historic reasons, should perhaps be Jewish-specific

Although etymologists note the word pogrom has increasingly been used to refer to any persecution instigated by a government or dominant class against a minority group, its origin lies in organized attacks on the Jews and, for historic reasons, pogrom perhaps should be used only in this context.

Although mob attacks on Jews, organized and spontaneous, have been documented for thousands of years, pogrom is a Yiddish variation on a Russian word meaning "thunder" and entered the English language to describe nineteenth and twentieth century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire, similar attacks against Jews at other times and places retrospectively becoming known as pogroms.  An important technical distinction emerged in the discussions which produced the four articles of indictment ((1) planning aggressive war, (2) waging aggressive war (the two collective the core crime of aggression), (3) war crimes and (4) crimes against humanity) which became the basis of the Nuremberg trials in 1946-1947.  While it was clear an event such as 1938’s Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass), in which dozens of Jews were killed, was a pogrom in the historical sense, the holocaust which followed between 1941-1945 was so monstrous a crime and on such a scale that another word was required and thus was created genocide.

In the years since, the definitional aspects of these matters have become a macabre exercise for lawyers required to prosecute or defend those accused of mass-murder.  In the last quarter-century, deciding what to do about what was done in places like Rwanda, the Congo, Darfur, the former Yugoslavia and Burma (Myanmar) required courts to decide whether to treat the events as vigilantism, terrorism, massacres, genocide, war, pogroms or the more recent descriptor, ethnic cleansing.

Promotional poster by Josef Fenneker (1895-1956) for the German silent film Pogrom (1919), written and directed by Austrian Alfred Halm (1861-1951) and distributed by Berliner Film-Manufaktur GmbH.

Aggression

Aggression (pronounced uh-gresh-uhn)

(1) The action of a state in violating by force the rights of another state, particularly its territorial rights; an unprovoked offensive, attack, invasion, or the like.

(2) Any offensive action, attack, or procedure; an inroad or encroachment.

(3) The practice of making assaults or attacks; offensive action in general.

(4) In clinical psychiatry, overt or suppressed hostility, either innate or resulting from continued frustration and directed outward or against oneself.

(5) In the study of animal behavior and zoology, behavior intended to intimidate or injure an animal of the same species or of a competing species but is not predatory.  Aggression may be displayed during mating rituals or to defend territory, as by the erection of fins by fish and feathers by birds.

1605–1615: English borrowed the word directly from the French aggression, derived from the Latin aggressionem (nominative aggressio (a going to, an attack)), a noun of action from past participle stem of aggredi (to approach; attack) a construct of ad (to) + gradi (past participle gressus (to step)) from gradus (a step).  The Classical Latin aggressiōn (stem of aggressiō), was equivalent to aggress(us) + iōn derived from aggrēdi (to attack).  Psychological sense of "hostile or destructive behavior" had its origin in early psychiatry, first noted in English in 1912 in a translation of Freud.  Related forms are antiaggression (adjective), counteraggression and preaggression (nouns); most frequently used derived form is aggressor (noun).

Aggression and International Jurisprudence, Locarno, Kellogg–Briand and the Nuremberg Trial

For centuries, philosophers, moral theologians and other peripheral players had written of the ways and means of outlawing wars of aggression but in the twentieth century, in the aftermath of the carnage of World War I (1914-1918), serious attempts were made to achieve exactly that, the first of which was the Locarno Pact.

Gustav Stresemann, Austen Chamberlain & Aristide Briand, Locarno, 1926.

Although usually referred to as the Locarno Pact, technically the pact consisted of seven treaties, the name derived from the Swiss city of Locarno at which the agreements negotiated between 5-16 October, 1925 although the documents were formally signed in London on 1 December.  Cynically, it can be said the Locarno Pact was a device by the western European powers to ensure they’d not again be the victims of German aggression which, if and when if were to happen, would be directed against those countries on its eastern border.  Of the seven treaties, it was the first which mattered most, a guarantee of the existing frontiers of Belgium, France, and Germany, underwritten by the UK and Italy.  Of the other agreements, two were intended to reassure the recently created Czechoslovakia and the recreated Poland, both of which, presciently as it turned out, felt some threat from Germany.

Whatever the implications, the intent was clear and about as pure as anything in politics can be: an attempt to ensure European states would never again need to resort to war.  Although the structural imbalances appear, in retrospect, obvious, at the time there were expectations of continued peaceful settlements and there arose, for a while, what was called the "spirit of Locarno": Germany was admitted to the League of Nations in September 1926, with a permanent seat on its council and Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded to the lead negotiators of the treaty, Sir Austen Chamberlain (1863-1937; UK foreign secretary 1924-1929), Aristide Briand (1862-1932; French foreign minister 1926-1932) and Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929; German foreign minister 1923-1929).

Members of the Cabinet, Senate, and House are seen gathered in the East Room of the White House, after President Coolidge and Secretary of State Kellogg signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

The spirit of Locarno proved infectious and inspired the noble notion it might be possible for men to gather around tables and sign papers which for all time would outlaw war and the Kellogg–Briand Pact (known also as the Pact of Paris and technically the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy) was a product of this optimism.  Signed in 1928 and named after the two main authors, Briand and Frank Kellogg (1856-1937; US Secretary of State 1925-1929), it was soon ratified by dozens of countries, all the signatory states promising not to use war to resolve "disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them".  It gained Kellogg his Nobel Peace Prize but peace proved elusive and in little more than a decade, the world was at war.  Another point cynics note is that the real consequence of the pact was not the prevention of war but the unfashionability of declaring war; wars continuing with a thin veneer of legal high-gloss.  Anthony Eden (1897-1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957) during the Suez Crisis (1956), noting no declaration had been made, distinguished between being “at war” and being in “a state of armed conflict” although those on the battlefield doubtless noticed no difference.  Because the pact was concluded outside the League of Nations, it remains afoot and the influence lingers; although hardly militarily inactive since 1945, the last declaration of war by the United States was in 1942.

Defendants at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), popularly known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.

Kellogg–Briand thus failed but was a vitally important twentieth century instrument.  It was from Kellogg-Briand the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trial in 1945-1946 were able to find the concept of a crime against peace as pre-existing law that was of such importance in establishing the legal validity of the incitements, both there and at the subsequent Tokyo Tribunal.  Without that legal framework from the 1920s, the construction of the legal basis for the concept of crimes against peace (the first two of the four articles of indictment at Nuremberg), may not have been possible.

At Nuremburg, the indictments served by the International Military Tribunals were:

(1) Conspiracy to plan the waging of wars of aggression.

(2) Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression.

(3) War crimes.

(4) Crimes against humanity.

It’s always been the fourth which has attracted most attention because the crimes committed were of such enormity and on such as scale, the word genocide had to be invented.  However, the greater effect on international law was the creation of the notion that those who plan wars of aggression can be punished for that very act, punishments wholly unrelated to the mechanics or consequences of how the wars may be fought.  Form this point can be traced the end of the centuries-old legal doctrine of sovereign immunity for those waging wars of aggression.

So, after Nuremberg, the long tradition of the preemptive and preventative war as an instrument of political policy was no longer the convenient option it had for thousands of years been.  With section 4 of the United Nations (UN) Charter prohibiting all members from exercising "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state", there was obvious interest in the charter's phrase phrase of exculpation: "armed attack" which effectively limited the parameters of the circumstances in which the use of military force might be legitimate under international law.  Stretching things as far as even the most accommodating of impartial lawyers were prepared to reach, if no armed attack has been suffered, for an act of preemptive self-defense to be lawful, (1) a threat must be demonstratively real and not merely a perception of the possible and (2), the force applied in self-defense must be proportional to the harm threatened.  All this is why General Colin Powell's (1937–2021; US Secretary of State 2001-2005) statement of justification to the Security Council seeking authority to invade Iraq in 2003 took the tortured form it did.

Mr Putin.

The state of international law is why President Vladimir Putin (b 1952; prime-minister or president of Russia since 1999) has resorted to some unusual terminology and some impressive, if not entirely convincing, intellectual gymnastics in his explanations of geography and history.  While hardly the direct and unambiguous speech used by some of his predecessors in the Kremlin, it's certainly kept the Kremlinologists and their readers interested.  As early as December 2020, Mr Putin was already using the phrase "military-technical measures" should NATO (again) approach Russia's borders and the charm of that presumably was that having no precise meaning, it could at any time mean what Mr Putin wanted it to mean at that moment.  Mr Putin also claimed the government in the Ukraine is committing genocide against ethnic Russians within the territory and, in an echo of similar claims from the troubled 1930s "seemed to believe his own atrocity stories", later doubling-down, calling the Ukranian government a "Nazi regime" and said he was seeking a process of "de-Nazification" (an actual structured and large-scale programme run in post-war Germany by the occupying forces aimed at removing the worst elements of the Third Reich from public life).  

Most interestingly, Mr Putin said Ukraine wasn’t a real country, a significant point if true because it's only foreign countries which can be invaded.  If a government moves troops into parts of their own territory, it's not an invasion; it might be a police action, a counter-insurgency or a military exercise or any number of things but it can't be an invasion.  Technically of course, that applies also to renegade provinces.  It seemed an adventurous argument to run given Ukraine has for decades been a member of the UN and recognized by just about every country (including Russia) as a sovereign state.  To clarify, Mr Putin added the odd nuance, claiming Ukraine was "...not a real country..." and had "...never had its own authentic statehood."  "There has never been a sustainable statehood in Ukraine.”  The basis of that was his assertion that Ukraine was created by the Soviet Union's first leader, Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924; Leader of Soviet Russia 1917-1924 & the USSR 1922-1924) as either a sort of administrative zone or just as a mistake depending on interpretation.  Ignoring the wealth of historical material documenting the pre-Soviet history of the Ukraine, Mr Putin insisted it was part of Russia, an "...integral part of our own history, culture, spiritual space.”

Having established his case the Ukraine was no foreign country but just another piece of Russia, Mr Putin turned his thoughts to the nature of the threat the obviously renegade province posed.  Although after the collapse of the USSR, the Ukraine voluntarily (and gratefully) gave up the nuclear weapons in its territory in exchange for a security guarantees issued by the US, UK, and Russia, Mr Putin expressed concern the neo-Nazi regime there had both the knowledge and the desire to obtain nuclear weapons and delivery systems, adding: “If Ukraine acquires weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the world and in Europe will drastically change, especially for us, for Russia... we cannot but react to this real danger, all the more so since, let me repeat, Ukraine’s Western patrons may help it acquire these weapons to create yet another threat to our country.”

The internal logic of this was perfect to satisfy international law: (1) The territory which on maps is called Ukraine is not a country and just a part of Russia and (2), the illegal administration running the renegade province of Ukraine is plotting to acquire weapons of mass-destruction.  Under those conditions, military action by Moscow would be valid under international law but just to make sure, Mr Putin recognized Donetsk and Luhansk (two separatist regions in the Donbas), and deployed Russian troops as "peacekeepers".  Around the world, just about everybody except the usual suspects called it an invasion.

Many also discussed the legal position, perhaps not a great consolation to the citizens of Ukraine and the limitations of international law had anyway long been understood by those who were most hopeful of their civilizing power.  In his report to President Truman (1884–1972; US president 1945-1953) at the conclusion of the Nuremberg trial (1945-1946), Justice Robert Jackson (1892–1954; sometime justice of the US Supreme Court, US solicitor general & attorney general and chief US prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials), noted the judgment had "...for the first time made explicit and unambiguous what was theretofore, as the Tribunal has declared, implicit in International Law, namely, that to prepare, incite, or wage a war of aggression, or to conspire with others to do so, is a crime against international society, and that to persecute, oppress, or do violence to individuals or minorities on political, racial, or religious grounds in connection with such a war, or to exterminate, enslave, or deport civilian populations, is an international crime, and that for the commission of such crimes individuals are responsible. This agreement also won the adherence of nineteen additional nations and represents the combined judgments of the overwhelming majority of civilized people. It is a basic charter in the International Law of the future."  However, his idealism tempered by what he knew to be the nature of men, he conceded it would be "... extravagant to claim that agreements or trials of this character can make aggressive war or persecution of minorities impossible." although he did add that there was no doubt "they strengthen the bulwarks of peace and tolerance."  One of the US judges at Nuremburg had, whatever the theoretical legal position, reached an even more gloomy conclusion, Francis Biddle (1886–1968; US solicitor general 1940-1941 & attorney general 1941-1945 and primary US judge at the Nuremberg Trials) writing to the president that the judgements he'd helped deliver couldn't prevent war but might help men to "... learn a little better to detest it."  "Aggressive war was once romantic, now it is criminal."

Biddle was a realist who understood the forces which operated within legal systems and nation states.  Even the long-serving liberal judge William O Douglas (1898–1980; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1939-1975) couldn’t bring himself to accept that the aggression which led to World War II (1939-1945) in which as many a sixty millions died was not reason enough to overcome his aversion to ex post facto law (the construct being the Latin ex (from) + post (after) + facto, ablative of factum (deed), (that which retrospectively changes the legal consequences of actions from what would have applied prior to the application of the law).  Douglas deplored the way the IMT had not only convicted but imposed capital sentences of those indicted for conduct which has at time been legal under metropolitan and international law:

“No matter how many books are written or briefs filed, no matter how finely the lawyers analyzed it, the crime for which the Nazis were tried had never been formalized as a crime with the definiteness required by our legal standards, nor outlawed with a death penalty by the international community. By our standards that crime arose under ex post facto law. Goering et al. deserved severe punishment. But their guilt did not justify us in substituting power for principle.”

Developments since in international law have seen progress.  The United Nations Charter, adopted in 1945, prohibits the use of force by one state against another, except in cases of self-defense or when authorized by the UN Security Council for the purpose of maintaining or restoring international peace and security, Article 2(4) of the UN Charter stating “all Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."  That works in conjunction with the Nuremberg Principles which declared the planning, preparation, initiation, or execution of a war of aggression is a crime against peace and a violation of international law, a more concrete underpinning of customary international law than the Kellogg-Briand Pact which was in the same vein but always was of limited practical application because there existed no mechanism of enforcement or codification of penalties.  Despite that, the core concept of just what does constitute the crime of “aggressive war” has never been generally agreed and although the UN’s 1974 statement: “Aggression is the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.” seems compelling, the debate continues.

Nuncio

Nuncio (pronounced nuhn-shee-oh, nuhn-see-oh or noo-see-oh)

(1) In the Roman Catholic Church, the ecclesiastic title of a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a foreign court, capital or international organization, ranking above an internuncio and accorded a rank equivalent to an accredited ambassador.

(2) By extension, one who bears a message; a messenger.

(3) Any member of any Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Galicia (of the Austrian Partition), Duchy of Warsaw, Congress Poland, or Grand Duchy of Posen (historic reference only).

1520–1530: From the older Italian nuncio (now nunzio) from the Classical Latin nūncius & nūntius (messenger) of uncertain origin.  It may be from the primitive Indo-European root neu- (to shout) or new (to nod), same source as the Latin nuō, the Ancient Greek νεύω (neúō) (to beckon, nod) and the Old Irish noid (make known).  The alternative view is it was contracted from noventius, from an obsolete noveō, from novus.  Nuncio, nunciature & nuncioship are nouns and nunciotist is an adjective; the noun plural is nuncios but according to the text trawlers, the more frequently used plural is nunciature ((1)the status or rank of a nuncio, (2) the building & staff of a nuncio and (3) the term of service of a nuncio) which seems strange and may reflect the selection of documents scanned. Nunciatory & nunciate are unrelated (directly) and are form of the Latin Latin nuncius & nuntius (messenger, message).

In diplomatic service

An apostolic nuncio (also known as a papal nuncio or nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as envoy or permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or international organization and is head of the Apostolic Nunciature, the equivalent of an embassy or high-commission.  The Holy See is legally distinct from the Vatican City, an important theological distinction for the Vatican although one without practical significance for the states to which they’re accredited.  Most nuncios have been bishops or Archbishops and, by convention, in historically Catholic countries, the nuncio usually enjoys seniority in precedence, appointed ex officio as dean of the diplomatic corps.  Between 1965 and 1991, the term pro-nuncio was applied to a representative of full ambassadorial rank accredited to a country that did not accord precedence and de jure deanship of the diplomatic corps and in countries with which Holy See does not have diplomatic ties, an apostolic delegate may be sent to act as liaison with the local church.  Apostolic delegates have the same ecclesiastical rank as nuncios, but no diplomatic status except those which the country may choose to extend.

Der Apostolische Nuntius (Apostolic Nuncios) to Germany leaving the presidential palace  of Generalfeldmarshall Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), Reichspräsident (1925-1934) of the Weimar Republic 1918-1933): Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli (1876–1958, later Pope Pius XII 1939-1958), October 1927 (left) and Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo (1873–1946), May 1930 (right).

The above photograph of Archbishop Pacelli was central to what proved a fleeting literary scandal.  In 1999, journalist John Cornwell (b 1940) published Hitler's Pope, a study of the actions of Pacelli from the decades before the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933 until the end of the Third Reich in 1945.  As a coda, the final years of the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) were also examined.  Cornwell’s thesis was that in his pursuit of establishing a centralized power structure with which the rule of the Holy See could be enforced over the entire church around the world, Pacelli so enfeebled the Roman Catholic Church in Germany that the last significant opposition to absolute Nazi rule was destroyed, leaving Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) able to pursue his goals which include military conquest and ultimately, what proved to be the attempted genocide of the Jews of Europe.  For a historian that would be an indictment damning enough but Cornwell went further, citing documentary sources which he claimed established Pacelli’s anti-Semitism.  More controversially still, the author was critical of Pius' conduct during the war, arguing that he did little to protect the Jews and did not even loudly protest against the Holocaust.  

Critical response to Hitler’s Pope was, as one might imagine, varied and understandably did focus on the most incendiary of the claims: the lifetime of anti-Semitism and the almost lineal path the book tracked from Pacelli’s diplomacy (which few deny did smooth Hitler’s path to power) to Auschwitz.  The consensus of professional historians was that case really wasn’t made and by 1933 Pacelli’s view of Hitler as (1) a staunch anti-communist and (2) likely to provide German with the sort of rule Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) had delivered in Italy, then the only model of a fascist regime and one with which the Holy See had successfully negotiated a concordat (a convention or treaty) which resolved issues which between the papacy and the Italian state had festered since 1870.  Pacelli was hardly the only notable figure to misjudge Hitler and few in 1933 anticipated anything like the events which would unfold in Europe over the next dozen years.  The critics however were legion and in the years after publication Cornwell did concede that in the particular circumstances of wartime Italy the “scope” for a pope to act was limited and he needed carefully to consider what might be the repercussions for others were his words to be careless; he was at the time playing for high stakes.  Cornwell though did not retreat from his criticism of the pope’s post-war reticence to discuss the era and appeared still to regard the documents he’d quoted and the events he described as evidence of anti-Semitism.

An example of how the book enraged Pius XII’s Praetorian Guard was the brief controversy about the cover, the allegation being there had been a “constructive manipulation” of the image used on the hardback copies of the US edition, the argument being the juxtaposition of the title “Hitler’s Pope” with the photograph of him leaving the presidential palace in Berlin implied the image dated from March 1939, the month Pacelli was elected Pope.  To add to the deception, it was noted the photograph (actually from 1927) had been cropped to remove (1) one soldier of the guard obviously not in a Nazi-era uniform and (2) the details identifying an automobile as obviously from the 1920s.  Whether any reader deduced from the cropped image that the pope and Führer (the two never met) had just been scheming and plotting together isn’t known but the correct details of the photograph were printed on back flap of the jacket, as in common in publishing.

Pius XII giving a blessing, the Vatican, 1952.  The outstretched arms became his signature gesture after his visit to South America in 1934.  Pius XI (1857–1939; pope 1922-1939), even them grooming his successor, appointed him papal legate to the International Eucharistic Congress in Buenos Aires and his itinerary included Rio de Janeiro where he saw the Redēmptōre statue (Christ the Redeemer) which had been dedicated three years earlier.    

That storm in a tea cup quickly subsided and people were left to draw their own conclusions on substantive matters but it was unfortunate the sensational stuff drew attention from was a genuinely interesting aspect explored in the book: Pacelli’s critical role in the (re-)creation of the papacy and the Roman Curia as a centralized institution with absolute authority over the whole Church.  This was something which had been evolving since Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) convened the First Vatican Council (Vatican I; 1869-1870) and under subsequent pontificates the process had continued but it was the publication of Pacelli’s codification of canon law in 1917 which made this administratively (and legally) possible.  Of course, any pope could at any time have ordered a codification but it was only in the late nineteenth century that modern communications made it possible for instructions issued from the Vatican to arrive within days, hours or even minutes, just about anywhere on the planet.  Previously, when a letter could take months to be delivered, a central authority simply would not function effectively.  It was the 1917 codification of canon law which realised the implications of the hierarchical theocracy which the Roman church had often appeared to be but never quite was because until the twentieth century such things were not possible and (as amended), it remains the document to which the curia cling in their battles.  Although, conscious of the mystique of their two-thousand year history, the Holy See likes people to imagine things about which they care have been unchanged for centuries, it has for example been only sine the codification that the appointment of bishops is vested exclusively in the pope, that battle with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still in an uneasy state of truce.