Slow-Burn Destruction: Reading "Conditions of Life" into Twenty-First Century Genocide

Chakhmakhchyan, Svetah and Meyroyan, Edgar · 2025

Targets a gap in genocide law: the under-use of Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention: 'deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction', against strategies of deprivation that kill a group slowly. Blockades, sieges, and enforced isolation produce attrition that escapes timely legal recognition because the harm unfolds gradually and specific intent is harder to prove, so such acts get downgraded to humanitarian crises or war crimes. The authors clarify the doctrinal scope of Article II(c), synthesize the jurisprudence on actus reus and genocidal intent without a body-count threshold, and turn it into an early-warning and charging framework with objective triggers such as sustained supply shortfalls, health-system collapse, and repeated obstruction of humanitarian access. A proof-of-concept applies the framework to the blockade of the Berdzor Corridor.

Citation checked against the publisher's record on 2026-07-13.