Ethnic cleansing refers to any purposeful policy designed by one ethnic group to remove by violent and fear-inducing means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. The term was coined and popularized in the international media during the conflicts that erupted following the dissolution of Yugoslavia and subsequently adopted by international diplomatic and legal terminology.
Several scholars have criticized the term as a euphemism for genocide, and have warned that its use could prevent adequate public recognition of ongoing genocide and thus hamper decisive action on behalf of the international community. However, the condemnation of ethnic cleansing has become universal and it seems likely that, as a matter of customary law, it will soon be established that this type of conduct is strictly prohibited.
The wording of the relevant treaty provisions – in particular Article II (c) of the Genocide Convention, which states that any act or practice that inflicts conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a group, whether or not such action is actually carried out, is tantamount to genocide – has been interpreted as including a range of different activities. These include the forcible removal or expulsion of populations, attacks on villages and the widespread destruction of cultural and historical buildings, and the destruction of cemeteries and places of worship.
In its first Interim Report of 5 October 1993 the Commission of Experts on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina defined ethnic cleansing as ‘Rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by the use of force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the territory in question, which may consist of killing, injuring, forcible transfer or deportation and destruction of property, including places of worship and cultural monuments of the given group’. It has also been emphasized that the term may be applied to any group defined on the basis of distinguishable criteria, such as race, class, nationality or religion.