Genocide: trajectory and history of a concept and the discussions surrounding it

Abstract

Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as a crime in 1944, but its inclusion as a crime of international law was the product of arduous discussions and intense acts of unquestionable militancy that cannot be separated from the political context in which they occurred. This article intents to reconstruct the winding historical paths and debates that led to the CONUG sanction, the subsequent proposals, the attempts to extend and update the Convention and the interrelation between social and legal sciences to understand the concept and its current scope. These issues are taken up in a set of reflections about the Conquest of the Desert process (1879-1885) and the criticisms of its characterization as genocide. This paper particularly analyzes the tendency towards denial; that is, approaches taking into consideration aspects of genocide such as: anachronism, denial of indigenous agency, non-academic activism, and the Conquest of the Desert understood as a war.