Don’t stop there:

The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

1. A mental element: the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”; and

2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

   • Killing members of the group
   • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
   • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
   • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
   • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.