By Samuel Smith, The Christian Post.
Dr. Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch and a research professor of genocide studies and prevention at George Mason University in Virginia, explained that the word “genocide” carries with it much tougher implications when it comes to international law.
“Why does the G-word matter? Why not simply call ISIS’ crimes against Christians and others ‘crimes against humanity?'” Stanton asked. “‘Genocide’ is much more powerful than ‘crimes against humanity,’ ‘war crimes,’ ‘ethnic cleansing’ or these ill-defined terms like ‘global atrocity crimes.’ Those don’t even have a definition in the international law.”
“‘Ethnic cleansing’ doesn’t even exist in international law, nor does ‘atrocity crimes,’ whereas ‘genocide’ is actually in a convention.” Stanton continued. “The reason why the word ‘genocide’ matters is because words matter. People act according to words.”