Ethnic cleansing is the process of deliberately removing members of a group from their homes and communities. It is considered a form of genocide and may also constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is often used to describe the treatment of ethnic minorities by state or non-state actors in conflict situations, for example the forcible removal of civilians in South Sudan (Report of the Commission on Human Rights in the State of South Sudan para 82).

The term first entered international diplomatic parlance and official UN vocabulary during the conflicts and forced population transfer that erupted after the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The term has been applied to a range of situations, from the killing and expulsion of civilians by Russian forces in Chechnya to the forcible expulsions of residents of Darfur by the government of Sudan.

Some scholars equate ethnic cleansing with genocide, but others argue that the two terms have different meanings: while the aim of genocide is to destroy entire racial, religious or ethnic groups, the purpose of ethnic cleansing is to create an ethnically homogeneous environment, and the method of achieving this goal may differ from one case to the next.

The ICC’s linking of ethnic cleansing more specifically to genocide, “crimes against humanity” and war crimes in its recent judgment in the Blagojevic trial clarifies the concept, indicating that a specific intention to remove individuals from their communities is a key element of the crime of ethnic cleansing. Garrity suggests that a move away from the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ in favor of alternative, more precisely descriptive concepts could eliminate ambiguity, improve theoretical precision, and open up a promising new research agenda.