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5 Eur. J. Int'l L. 342 (1994)
Ethnic Cleansing - An Attempt at Methodology

handle is hein.journals/eurint5 and id is 366 raw text is: Ethnic Cleansing - An Attempt at Methodology Drazen Petrovic * The continuing war in Bosnia and Herzegovina has contributed a new term to the vocabulary of international relations with the expression 'ethnic cleansing'.1 This word describes a set of human rights and humanitarian law violations in both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.2 The term was initially used by journalists and politicians who applied it later to other crisis situations,3 but it has also been adopted as part of the official vocabulary of UN Security Council documents and by other UN institutions and governmental and non-governmental international organizations. In fact, the reasoning behind this terminology and its relationship to the system of international law are not very clear. This study will compare the description of this phenomenon given in different documents, and analyse its substance in order to determine if it has any meaning in international law. As a necessary first research step, given that no agreement exists about the very definition of ethnic cleansing, some basic notions should be discussed. As this is one of the first papers on this issue, extensive references and quotations have sometimes seemed inevitable. The main reason for such an * Senior assistant of the Sarajevo University Law School; Research student at the European University Institute Florence; Ph.D. Student of the Geneva University Law School. 1 Commission of Experts in its First Interim Report of 10 February 1993, UN Doc. S/25274: 'The expression ethnic cleansing is relatively new.' See also Roux, 'A propos de la purification ethnique en Bosnie-Herzdgovine', Hirodote (1992) 49. See also by Roux, 'Lo scenario bosniaco: Pulizia etnica e spartizione territoriale', LIMES Rivista italiana di geopolitica (1/1993) 29-46. 2 Ethnic cleansing has been compared with Nazi policies during World War II. See, Mr. Cornelio Sommaruga, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at the opening of the International Meeting on Humanitarian Aid for Victims of the Conflict in the former Yugoslavia, held under the auspices of the UNHCR, Geneva, 29 July 1992, Statement of Mr. Eagleburger, US Secretary of State, International Herald Tribune 17 December 1992, at 1; Fdron, 'Yougoslavie, Origines d'un conflit', Le Monde (1993) 91. 3 For example in Cyprus, Rana, 'Pulizie etniche - Cipro', Avvenimenti 15 December 1993, Georgia, Hockstader, 'In Georgia, Tales of Atrocities', International Herald Tribune 22 October 1993, at 5, Burundi, Dupraz, 'La purification ethnique plonge t nouveau le Burundi dans 'horreur', Le Tribune de Genave 23 March 1994, at 11 and Caucasus, 'Nettoyage ethnique dans le Caucase', L'Hebdo, 21 October 1994, at 10. 5 EJIL (1994) 342-359

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