Ethnic cleansing is one of the most infamous forms of forcible population transfer that can be carried out by States against their own populations. It is commonly regarded as a phenomenon that is peculiarly 20th century in origin, being closely linked to the political ideal of the homogeneous Nation-State, and the ethnic nationalism that underscores it. Yet, as numerous authors have pointed out, forcible displacements of populations that may be described in contemporary terms as ‘ethnic cleansing’ have been prevalent throughout history. The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III, for example, deported one-half of the population from any territory that he conquered; the Nazi attempt to exterminate Europe’s Jews during the 1930’s and 1940’s; and the mass expulsions that occurred during the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990’s were all examples of ‘ethnic cleansing’.
In the context of the ICC, it has been widely recognized that the concept of ‘ethnic cleansing’ could be subsumed under the offenses of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Indeed, in its ruling in the Bosnian Genocide Case (Croatia v Serbia), the ICJ confirmed that forcible displacements in the context of ‘ethnic cleansing’ may be considered a form of destruction or other act of inhumanity.
More recently, with the inclusion of ‘ethnic cleansing’ within the ambit of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’, it has been suggested that the ‘ethnic cleansing’ concept is no longer necessarily subsumed under the broader category of ‘genocide’, but rather constitutes an autonomous category of crime. Yet, forcible displacements in the context of ethnic cleansing are no more or less criminal than those involving other criteria such as class, race, nationality, religion, and linguistic minorities.
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