Which term is defined under the Genocide Convention as a crime?

• A. Democide
• B. Torture
• C. Genocide
• D. War crime

Answer: (C)

The main idea being tested is that genocide is the crime defined by the Genocide Convention. Genocide is defined as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. This can include killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction, imposing measures to prevent births, or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The essential point is the specific intent to destroy a protected group as such.

That is why genocide is the correct term: it is the particular crime codified in the Genocide Convention. Other terms don’t fit the same way. War crimes relate to violations of international humanitarian law during armed conflict; torture is prohibited under various treaties but not the Genocide Convention’s defining crime; democide is a broader, non-technical term not the formal crime defined by the convention.