What is the definition of ethnic cleansing under international law?
Executive summary
genocide-definition-and-standards">Ethnic cleansing is widely understood as policies or practices intended to make a territory ethnically homogeneous by removing members of a particular ethnic, racial, national or religious group through force or intimidation, but it is not defined as an independent crime in international law [1] [2] [3]. International institutions therefore prosecute the constituent acts of ethnic cleansing—deportation, murder, rape, persecution, forcible transfer—as crimes against humanity, war crimes, or, in the narrowest cases, genocide, rather than as a standalone statutory offence [4] [5] [6].
1. What the phrase actually denotes: the practical definition used by experts
In practice, the term has been pinned to the UN Commission of Experts’ formulation from the former Yugoslavia: “rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area,” a definition echoed across scholarly and institutional sources and repeated in later UN and academic writing [1] [7] [8].
2. Legal status: a descriptive term, not an independent crime
Despite pervasive use in media and diplomacy, ethnic cleansing has no separate, binding legal definition in international criminal law and is not codified as an independent offence in treaties; United Nations materials and major legal encyclopedias are explicit that the term is descriptive rather than a standalone legal category [6] [3] [9].
3. How international law actually addresses the conduct called “ethnic cleansing”
Acts typically associated with ethnic cleansing—forced deportation or transfer, widespread murder, torture, rape, persecution, disappearance and destruction of property—fall within enumerated crimes in the Rome Statute (crimes against humanity and war crimes) and were the subject of prosecutions at ad hoc tribunals such as the ICTY; thus international law reaches the behavior even if it does not label it “ethnic cleansing” as a separate statutory crime [4] [5] [10].
4. When does ethnic cleansing overlap with genocide?
The boundary between ethnic cleansing and genocide is contentious: genocide requires a specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group, while ethnic cleansing can be satisfied by intent to remove a group from a territory without the intent to physically destroy it; international judges and commentators therefore treat some acts of ethnic cleansing as crimes against humanity or war crimes and reserve the genocide label for cases where the requisite exterminatory intent can be proven [6] [10] [11].
5. Courts, prosecutions and gaps in accountability
International tribunals and the ICC have pursued the constituent crimes that make up ethnic-cleansing campaigns—resulting in indictments and convictions for deportation, persecution and related offences—but no international court has prosecuted “ethnic cleansing” as a separate charge, a gap that prompts both practical prosecutions under existing categories and persistent calls to clarify or codify the concept [4] [5] [12].
6. The debate over codification and political use of the term
Scholars and practitioners disagree about whether formal criminalization would help victims or muddle legal standards; some argue that making ethnic cleansing a standalone crime would improve clarity and prevention, while others warn the label’s political and media use—without legal precision—can distract from prosecutable crimes like genocide, and may be used rhetorically by state and non-state actors [12] [3] [11].
7. Bottom line for accountability and analysis
For legal purposes, the decisive question is not the shorthand “ethnic cleansing” but whether the investigated acts meet elements of crimes against humanity, war crimes, or genocide under existing instruments; reporting and policy should therefore focus on the specific conduct, context and mens rea that international law requires rather than rely solely on the descriptive label [4] [6] [2].