Cultural genocide is the systematic destruction of traditions, values, language, and other elements that make one group of people distinct from another.Cultural genocide remains a recurrent topic, appearing not only in the form of wide-ranging claims about the commission of cultural genocide in diverse contexts but also in the legal sphere, as exemplified by the discussions before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and also the drafting of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These discussions have, however, displayed the lack of a uniform understanding of the concept of cultural genocide and thus of the role that international law is expected to fulfil in this regard. The Concept of Cultural Genocide: An International Law Perspective details how international law has approached the core idea underlying the concept of cultural genocide and how this framework can be strengthened and fostered. It traces developments from the early conceptualisation of cultural genocide to the contemporary question of its reparation. Through this journey, the book discusses the evolution of various branches of international law in relation to both cultural protection and cultural destruction in light of a number of legal cases in which either the concept of cultural genocide or the idea of cultural destruction has been discussed. Such cases include the destruction of cultural and religious heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the forced removals of Aboriginal children in Australia and Canada, and the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in relation to Indigenous and tribal groups' cultural destruction.

Most scholars of genocide focus on mass murder. Lawrence Davidson, by contrast, explores the murder of culture. He suggests that when people have limited knowledge of the culture outside of their own group, they are unable to accurately assess the alleged threat of others around them. Throughout history, dominant populations have often dealt with these fears through mass murder. However, the shock of the Holocaust now deters today’s great powers from the practice of physical genocide. Majority populations, cognizant of outside pressure and knowing that they should not resort to mass murder, have turned instead to cultural genocide as a “second best” politically determined substitute for physical genocide. In Cultural Genocide, this theory is applied to events in four settings, two events that preceded the Holocaust and two events that followed it: the destruction of American Indians by uninformed settlers who viewed these natives as inferior and were more intent on removing them from the frontier than annihilating them; the attack on the culture of Eastern European Jews living within Russian-controlled areas before the Holocaust; the Israeli attack on Palestinian culture; and the absorption of Tibet by the People’s Republic of China. In conclusion, Davidson examines the mechanisms that may be used to combat today’s cultural genocide as well as the contemporary social and political forces at work that must be overcome in the process.

This book explores concepts of Cultural genocide, its definitions, place in international law, the systems and methods that contribute to its manifestations, and its occurrences. Through a systematic approach and comprehensive analysis, international and interdisciplinary contributors from the fields of genocide studies, legal studies, criminology, sociology, archaeology, human rights, colonial studies, and anthropology examine the legal, structural, and political issues associated with cultural genocide. This includes a series of geographically representative case studies from the USA, Brazil, Australia, West Papua, Iraq, Palestine, Iran, and Canada. This volume is unique in its interdisciplinarity, regional coverage, and the various methods of cultural genocide represented, and will be of interest to scholars of genocide studies, cultural studies and human rights, international law, international relations, indigenous studies, anthropology, and history.

As Black and African Studies programs emerged in the early 1970's, the question of who has the right and responsibility to determine course content and curriculum also emerged. In 1972, Dr. Ben's critique on this subject was published as Cultural Genocide in The Black and African Studies Curriculum. It has been republished several times since then and its topic has remained timely and unresolved.

This book critiques the dominant physical and biological interpretation of the Genocide Convention and argues that the idea of "culture" is central to properly understanding the crime of genocide. Using Raphael Lemkin’s personal papers, archival materials from the State Department and the UN, as well as the mid-century secondary literature, it situates the convention in the longstanding debate between Enlightenment notions of universality and individualism, and Romantic notions of particularism and holism. The author conducts a thorough review of the treaty and its preparatory work to show that the drafters brought strong culturalist ideas to the debate and that Lemkin’s ideas were held widely in the immediate postwar period. Reconstructing the mid-century conversation on genocide and situating it in the much broader mid-century discourse on justice and society he demonstrates that culture is not a distraction to be read out of the Genocide Convention; it is the very reason it exists. This volume poses a forceful challenge to the materialist interpretation and calls into question decades of international case law. It will be of interest to scholars of genocide, human rights, international law, the history of international law and human rights, and treaty interpretation.

Spirit Wars is an exploration of the ways in which the destruction of spiritual practices and beliefs of native peoples in North America has led to conditions of collective suffering--a process sometimes referred to as cultural genocide. Ronald Niezen approaches this topic through wide-ranging case studies involving different colonial powers and state governments: the seventeenth-century Spanish occupation of the Southwest, the colonization of the Northeast by the French and British, nineteenth-century westward expansion and nationalism in the swelling United States and Canada, and twentieth-century struggles for native people's spiritual integrity and freedom. Each chapter deals with a specific dimension of the relationship between native peoples and non-native institutions, and together these topics yield a new understanding of the forces directed against the underpinnings of native cultures.

Cultural Genocide and the Protection of Cultural Heritage examines the various lenses through which the international community defines attacks on cultural heritage—legal, accountability, security, counterterrorism, and atrocity prevention—and proposes a sixth, cultural genocide, that can be used to recast the debate over how to best protect the world’s cultural heritage.