Ethnic cleansing (from the Greek prefix genos, meaning race or tribe, and Latin suffix cide, meaning killing) describes extreme forms of violence and persecution motivated by racial or ethnic animosities. In the most precise sense, it involves the indiscriminate expulsion or mass murder of members of a particular group in order to alter the population composition in favor of another, often through destroying their religious and cultural monuments, places of worship and cemeteries. Ethnic cleansing can occur during international armed conflicts as well as in times of peace, and can be punished under the Statute of the International Criminal Court if certain preconditions are met.
The term was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. He developed it in response to the genocidal policies of the Nazis against Jews during World War II and other examples throughout history, including the destruction of Carthage by the Romans, the massacre of Poles in Volhynia by the Soviets in 1943, and the forced expulsions of the indigenous populations of Bosnia and Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
In 1948, the UN General Assembly passed the Genocide Convention and made it a crime under international law. It has been ratified by 153 States. The ICJ has established that the prohibition on genocide is a peremptory norm of international law (or ius cogens), and States cannot deviate from it. However, the distinction between genocide and other types of mass atrocities is contested by many experts, and has become an issue of ongoing debate.