Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 5 P9 potx

Patent Reform bill on September 13, 1988.
The bill would have allowed exempted farmers
to reproduce, use, or sell patented animals,
although it prohibited them from selling germ
cells, semen, or embryos derived from animals.
However, the Senate did not vote on the act, and
so it did not become law.
During his campaign for presidency of the
United States, then-candidate
BARACK OBAMA
pledged to require mandatory labeling of all
foods containing (GMOs). In 2009 the Obama
administration reaffirme d its commitment to
this initiative.
Early Developments
In the mid-1990s the international guidelines
established by the Declaration of Helsinki were
modified to allow certain forms of cell manipu-
lation in order to develop germ cells for
therapeutic purposes. Scientists are also explor-
ing genetic engineering as a means of combating
the HIV virus.
In 1997 the cloning of an adult sheep by
Scottish scientist Ian Wilmut brought new
urgency to the cloning issue. Prior to this
development, cloning had been successful only
with immature cells, not those from an adult
animal. The breakthrough raised the prospect of
human cloning and prompte d an international
debate regarding the ethical and legal implica-
tions of cloning.

Since the cloning of the sheep, nicknamed
“Dolly,” scientists have found the process of
cloning to be more difficult than expected. After
Dolly scientists cloned such animals as cows,
pigs, monkeys, cats, and even rare and endan-
gered animals. The process of cloning is
complex, involving the replacement of the
nucleus of an egg cell with the nucleus of a cell
from the subject that will be cloned. This process
is meticulous, and the failure rate is high.
However, the efforts in such genetic manipula-
tion were not to create or clone animals, but
rather to create stronger and healthier animals.
Cloning by nuclear transfer and/or transgenic
technology involves a process wherein a nucleus
from a single cell containing DNA is injected, via
nuclear transfer, into an unfertilized egg, with the
resulting embryo transferred to the reproductive
tract of a healthy specimen.
Evidence suggests that cloned animals have
experienced significant health problems, leading
to concerns about the vitality of the entire
process. Cloned animals tend to be larger at
birth, which could cause problems for the
female animals giving birt h to them. The cloned
organisms also tend to become obese at middle
age, at least in the case of experimental cloned
mice. Moreover, evidence sugges ts that cloned
animals have died because they do not have
sufficient

IMMUNITY defenses to fight disease.
Dolly lived for six years before dying in
February 2003, which is about half of the
normal life expectancy of a sheep. Proponents
of the cloning experiments suggest that cloning
opens a number of possibilities in scientific
research, including the nature of certain diseases
and the development of genetically enhanced
medications. Scientists have also successfully
cloned endangered animals. In 2001 an Italian
group cloned an endangered form of sheep,
called the European mouflon. About a year and
a half earlier, an American company, Advanced
Cell Technology, tried unsuccessfully to clone
a rare Asian ox. The cloning was initially
successful, but the animal died of dysentery 48
hours after birth.
In November 2001 scientists first success-
fully inserted the DNA from one human cell
into another human egg. Although the eggs
began to replicate, they died shortly after the
procedure. Human cloning has caused the most
intense debate on the issue, with the debate
focusing upon scientific, moral, and religious
concerns over this possibility. Scientists do not
expect that human cloning will be possible for
several years.
In early 2005 the British government
granted approval to Professor Ian Wilmut of
Edinburgh’s Roslin

INSTITUTE (the scientist
behind the cloning of “Dolly”) to clone human
embryos for medical research. Despite palpable
public outcry, the government was quick to
point out that human reproductive cloning
remained illegal, but approval could be granted
where embryos were created as a source of
stem cells to treat or cure disease (therapeutic
cloning). Wilmut planned to use these stem
cells for investigation into Motor Neurone
Disease (MND).
Recent Developments
Perhaps one of the most promising areas of
genetic engineering, and one warranting scienti-
fic, legal, and ethical caution, is that of stem cell
research. The term refers to a process wherein
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
68 GENETIC ENGINEERING
humans (or animals) can regenerate, repair, or
replace their own diseased or aged organs, limbs,
or tissue through the development and cloning
of their own adult stem cells (extracted from
their bone marrow). Early genetic experiments
involved human embryos (embryonic stem
cells), and the scientific community as well as
the general public remained divided on the issue.
The form of stem cell research that continues to
spawn controversy evolves around usage of
embryonic stem cells (ESCs) that are removed
and harvested for research when an embryo is

less than 15 days old.
Research funding had been politically polar-
ized in the past, with celebrities such as Michael
J. Fox and former first lady Nancy Reagan
urging voters to further the cause. The issue
gained extensive media coverage during the
2004 U.S. presidential election campaigns be-
tween Senator John Kerry (D–Mass.) and
INCUMBENT President GEORGE W. BUSH. The Bush
administration firmly reiterated its position that
ESC research posed an ethical question, and that
taxpayer dollars would not be used to fund the
destruction of human embryos, irrespective of
their origin. In the end,
FEDERAL support for such
research was granted, but only using embryos
that had been donated from in vitro fertilization
clinics and already in federal research custody,
that would otherwise have been discarded. In
March 2009 President Barack Obama signed
into law
EXECUTIVE ORDER No. 13505, Removing
Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research
Involving Human Stem Cells, which expressly
revoked the previous administration’s restrictive
Executive Order 13435 of June 2007.
The 2009 Albert Lasko Basic Medical Re-
search Award for advancements in genetic
engineering research went to regenerative tech-
nology advances that do not rely human

reproductive embryos, but rather use transferred
DNA coding capable of instructing special cells to
form stem cells, which, in turn, are coded to
regenerate as specific organs or tissues. The
related Lasko Clinical Medical Research Award
went for stem cell research leading to a
revolutionary cancer treatment for certain types
of leukemia. The global market for such advance-
ments, according to Genetic Engineering &
Biotechnolgy News, was estimated at $700 million.
A new field of genetic engineering involves
the creation of synthetic genes (synthetic
genomics). As of 2009, their application was
limited to non-human experiments involving
alternative energy resources. Likewise, genetic
manipulation of existing crops has resulted in
the development of experimental crop plants
that utilize nitrogen more efficiently, thus
requiring less fertilizer in poor soils. Salt-
tolerant and drought-tolerant crops are also
under development. Of note is the research into
turning plant wastes into fuel and boosting oil
yields from algae grown in ponds.
Significant State Laws
Certain states have passed laws restricting
genetic engineering. By the early 1990s, six
states had enacted laws designed to curb or
prohibit the spread of genetically engineere d
products in the marketplace (see Ill. Ann. Stat.
ch. 430, § 95/1 [Smith-Hurd 1995]; Me. Rev.

Stat. Ann. tit. 7, § 231 et seq. [West 1995]; Minn.
Stat. Ann. § 116C.91 et seq. [West 1995]; N.C.
Gen. Stat. § 106-765-780 [Supp. 1991]; Okla.
Stat. Ann. tit. 2, §§ 2011–2018 [West 1996];
Wis. Stat. Ann. § 146.60 [West 1996]). North
Carolina’s law sets the most comprehensive
restrictions on genetic engineering. Resembling
the earlier measures proposed by organizations
such as England’s Genetic Manipulation Advi-
sory Group, it requires scientists to hold a
permit for any release of a genetically engi-
neered product outside a closed-containment
enclosure. The North Carolina statute has been
cited as a possible model for advocates of
comprehensive federal regulations.
In September 2008 California enacted its first
law related to genetic engineering, the Farmers
Protection Act, AB541. The bill protects farmers
from lawsuits relating to the drift (through
weather elements) of GE pollen or seed onto
their property, often contaminating their crops
with patent-protected genetically modified seeds
or pollens.
FURTHER READINGS
Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. 1983.
Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press.
“Better World: Learning to Love Genetic Engineering.” New
Scientist, September 14, 2009.
“2009 Lasko Awards Recognize Promise of Stem Cells-

Global Market Could Top $700 Million.” Genetic
Engineering & Biotechnolgy News, September 14, 2009.
Darvall, Leanna. 1993. Medicine, Law, and Social Change.
Aldershot, England: Dartmouth.
Harder, Ben. 2002. “Scientific Pitfalls Complicate Cloning
Debate.” National Geographic.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
GENETIC ENGINEERING 69
Mason, John Kenyon, and R.A. McCall-Smith. 1994. Law
and Medical Ethics. London: Butterworths.
Mason, John Kenyon, and R.A. McCall-Smith. 1987.
Butterworths Medico-Legal Encyclopedia. London: But-
terworths.
Paley, Eric R. 1993. “Rethinking Utility: The Expediency of
Granting Patent Protection to Partial CDNA
Sequences.” Syracuse Law Review.
Office of the White House. 2009. “Executive Order No.
13505, Removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific
Research Involving Human Stem Cells.” Text available
online at /Removing-
Barriers-to-Responsible-Scientific-Research-Involving-
Human-Stem-Cells/; website home page: http://www.
whitehouse.gov/ (accessed August 10, 2009)
Ratnoff and Smith. 1968. “Human Laboratory Animals:
Martyrs for Medicine.” Fordham Law Review 36.
Smith, George P., II. 1993. Bioethics and the Law. Lanham,
Md.; New York; and London: University Press of
America.
Smith, George P., II. 1981. Genetics, Ethics, and the Law.
Gaithersburg, Md.: Associated Faculty Press.

Trivedi, Bijal. 2001. “Human Embryos Cloned by U.S.
Company, But Don’t Survive.” National Geographic.
CROSS REFE RENCE
Genetic Screening.
GENETIC SCREENING
The scientific procedure of examining genetic
makeup to determine whether an individual
possesses genetic traits that indicate a tendency
toward acquiring or carrying certain diseases or
conditions. In 2001, scientists first published the
complete human genome map (a human’sgenetic
blueprint), greatly advancing the capability and use
of genetic screening, manipulation, and replication.
Genetic testing of humans facilitates the
discovery and treatment of genetic defects,
both before and after birth.
CIVIL RIGHTS
proponents, employers, and those who suffer
from genetic diseases have debated
GENETIC
SCREENING
because the procedure poses practi-
cal and theoretical legal, economic, and ethical
problems. Some theoris ts, for exam ple, have
suggested that genetic screening could improve
society if it were made mandatory before hiring
or
MARRIAGE. Others say that to mandate this
practice would be unconstitutional. Genetic
screening is a dynamic, rather than static, field

of medical and scientific experimentation and
application that clearly involves scientific,
legal, and ethical interests that may differ or
compete. Accordingly, each new milestone or
discovery warrants commensurate review of
these interests for both beneficial and poten-
tially detrimental consequences.
Federal and State Legislation
The earliest national and state legislation
concerning genetic scre ening was enacted in
the 1970s. The legislation focused on voluntary
genetic testing. The laws generally protect the
interests of those who suffer from genetic
disease, offer
FEDERAL and state subsidies for
counseling, and support research in genetic
diseases.
In 1976 Congress passed the National Sickle
Cell Anemia, Cooley’s Anemia, Tay-Sachs, and
Genetic Diseases Act (42 U.S.C.A. § 300b-1
et seq.), which permitted the use of public funds
for voluntary genetic screening and counse ling
programs. State legislatures passed measures,
with certain exceptions, requiring genetic
screening of school-age children for sickle cell
anemia. New York enacted a law that provides
for premarital testing to identify carriers of the
defective sickle cell gene (N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law
§13aa [McKinney 1977]). Other states provided
for voluntary premarital testing for the sickle

cell disease (e.g., Cal. Health & Safety Code
§ 325-331 [West 1978]); Ga. Code Ann. § 19-3-40
[1974]). Such legislation often included provi-
sions for voluntary, funded counseling (see Va.
Code Ann. § 32.1-68 [Michie]).
With the advent of new technology in
genetics came increasing concern about its
application. In 1996 Congress passed the
all-encompassing
HEALTH INSURANCE Portability
and Accountability Act (HIPAA) (P.L.104-191).
One key provision barred group
INSURANCE
plan administrators from using individual
employees’ genetic information as a factor when
writing group policies (unless such information
already resulted in the diagnosis of a illness).
However, the bill addressed neither individual
policies and premiums nor the use of genetic
information in the workplace.
Consequently, in 2000 President
BILL CLINTON
signed EXECUTIVE ORDER 13145, prohibiting
DISCRIMINATION in federal employment based
on genetic information. However, according
to the National Human Genome Research
INSTITUTE (a division of the N ational Institutes
of Health), 39 states had enacted bills addres-
sing genetic discrimination in health insurance
(see, e.g., Alabama Code §27–53–2,4; Alaska

Statutes Annotated §21.54.100; Louisiana
REVISED STATUTES Annotated §22.213.6,7, and so
on). Another 27 states had passed bills addres-
sing genetic discrimination in the workplace.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
70 GENETIC SCREENING
The Constitution, Civil Rights,
and Scientific Theory
In 1981 and again in 2002, Congress held
hearings to identify potential problems of
widespread genetic screening. Subsequent legal
and medical discussion has focused on the
ethics of certain practices such as eugenics, a
form of
GENETIC ENGINEERING that involves the
systematic programming of genes to create a
specific life form or the use of living animals for
experimentation. House and Senate committees
had pending bills before Congress (S. 318,
S. 382) hoping to create national legislation
addressing prohibited uses of genetic screening.
One potential problem with genetic screen-
ing arises in its use by employers. Although an
employer considering hiring an individual with
a genetic disease often relies primarily on
economic issues, the practice of screening
prospective employees and eliminating those
with defective genes may be discriminatory
because some genetic diseases afflict certain
ethnic and racial groups more often than others.

G-6-PD
DEFICIENCY, for example, occurs most
frequently in blacks and persons of Mediterra-
nean descent. If screening excludes persons with
G-6-PD deficiency, it will have a stronger effect
on those groups. This practice could violate
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.
C.A. §§ 2000e et seq.).
In early 2001 the first federal court lawsuit
of its kind was filed against a private company
alleging violations under the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA), P.L. 101-336 and several
state laws. According to the suit, which settled
in 2002, employer Burlington Northern Santa
Fe Railroad began furtively testing the blood of
workers with carpal tunnel syndrome. At least
18 employees claimed to have been subjected to
nonconsensual genetic testing. Still, other courts
have permitted limited use of genetic screening
as an adjudicatory aid in disputes. In a South
Carolina
CHILD CUSTODY case, a judge ordered a
woman to undergo genetic testing for Hunting-
ton’s disease, because the result could impact
her ability to care for the children. While some
experts would argue that these factors are
important to proper legal and personal decision
making, others question where the line will be
drawn.
Nevertheless, some legal scholars maintain

that compulsory genetic screening programs
violate the Constitution. They assert, for example,
that taking a child’s blood sample constitutes a
physical invasion of the body in violation of the
FOURTH AMENDMENT. Compulsory counseling pro-
grams for parents, they say, interfere with
the fundamental rights to marry and procreate.
The critics of screening propose that less intrusive
voluntary programs together with education
could accomplish the same objectives.
Even though genetic screening involves at
least a minor intrusion into an individual’s body
and may involve a search within the meaning of
the Fourth Amendment, proponents of genetic
science maintain that such searches are not
unreasonable if executed in a proper manner
and justified by a legitimate
STATE INTEREST (see
Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S . 757, 86 S. Ct.
1826, 16 L. Ed. 2d 908 [1966][holding that a
compulsory blood test to determine
INTOXICA-
TION
of an automobile driver is not an
unreasonable search]). Proponents of manda-
tory screening and counseling agree that these
practices could interfere with the right to
procreate. However, they suggest that the state’s
interests in improving the quality of a popula-
tion’s genetic pool in order to minimize

physical suffering and reduce the number of
economically dependent persons justifies the
INFRINGEMENT on the civil liberties of individuals.
Amniocentesis and the Abortion Debate
A specific form of genetic screening known as
amniocentesis raised fundamental
CONSTITUTI-
ONAL
issues when first introduced; in the
twenty-first century, however, it is considered
standard operating procedure for older women
to undergo amniocentesis when they have
A doctor and patient
discuss genetic
screening for Down’s
syndrome. As a result
of cases such as
Haymon v.
Wilkerson, doctors
have increased their
use of genetic
counseling and
fetal screening.
PHOTOEDIT
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
GENETIC SCREENING 71
conceived for the first time. Amniocentesis
consists of inserting a needle through the
abdominal wall of a pregnant woman into the

amniotic sac containing the fetus, withdrawing a
sample of the sac fluid, analyzing it for genetic
characteristics, and determining whether the
fetus has certain genetic defects. If amniocentesis
reveals a genetically defective fetus, the parents
may choose to abort it or carry it to term.
Children born with genetic defects have brought
legal claims against their parents for the tort of
WRONGFUL LIFE,orWRONGFUL BIRTH.
Before the advent of amniocentesis, wrong-
ful life actions generally failed (Pinkney v.
Pinkney, 198 So. 2d 52, [Fla. App. 1967]
[refusing to recognize tort of wrongful life for
extramarital child plaintiff against father] and
Zepeda v. Zepeda, 41 Ill. App. 2d 240, 190 N.
E.2d 849 [1963], cert. denied, 379 U.S. 945, 85 S.
Ct. 444, 13 L. Ed. 2d 545 [1964]). The
development of procedures such as amniocen-
tesis, coupled with a shift in societal attitudes
toward
ABORTION, has led to successful claims for
wrongful life. For example, in Haymon v.
Wilkerson, 535 A.2d 880 (D.C. App. 1987), a
mother brought a wrongful birth action against
a physician after her child was born with
Down’s syndrome. The court of appeals held
that the mother was entitled to recover
extraordinary medical and health care expenses
incurred as a result of the child’s mental and
physical abnormalities. As a result of cases such

as Haymon, doctors have increased their use of
genetic counseling and prenatal testing.
The Future of Genetic Screening
In 1993 the Nobel Prize for chemistry was
awarded to Kary Mullis for his development
of a technique known as polymerase chain
reaction, a method for rapidly isolating and
copying any DNA sequence out of a sample
that may contain thousands of other genes.
This technology is rapidly developing for
application not only in eugenics but also for
gene manipulation to correct defective gene
sequences in many diseases or conditions
(nanotechnology). Researchers at Oxford Uni-
versity’sWellcomeTrustCentreforHuman
Genetics announced in 2003 the development
of a methodology for con currently evaluating
the functional significance of millions of
noncoding polymorp his ms that exist in the
human genome. This development is expected
to contribute greatly to the determination of
genetic susceptibility to disease and assessing
future health risk through genetic screening.
On the legal front, Congress passed the
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of
2008 (GINA), (Pub.L. 110-343), in 2008. The
law addresses concerns about discrimination that
might keep some people from getting useful
genetic tests that could benefit their health. The
law also enables people to take part in research

studies without worrying that their DNA infor-
mation might be used against them when
applying for health insurance or for a job.
However, the law does not cover life insurance,
DISABILITY insurance, and long-term care insur-
ance. It sets a minimum standard of protection
that must be met in all states, but it does not
weaken the protections provided by any state law
concerning these i ssues. The law also established
the Genetic Nondiscrimination Study Commis-
sion, which will be appointed in 2014 to review
the developing science of genetics and to make
recommendations to Congress regarding whether
to provide a disparate-impact
CAUSE OF ACTION
under this statute.
FURTHER READINGS
“A Comparison of Enacted State Genetic Discrimination
Legislation.” 2001. Council for Responsible Genetics
(summer). Available online at www.gene-watch.org
(accessed July 26, 2003).
Hawkins, Dana. 2001. “The Dark Side of Genetic Testing.”
U.S. News & World Report 130.
Higgins, Michael. 1998. “Tempest in a Tube.” ABA Journal
84.
Jones, Nancy. 2008. Genetic Discrimination. Hauppauge,
New York:Nova Science Publishers.
Reilly, Philip R. 1993. “Public Policy and Legal Issues Raised
by Advances in Genetic Screening and Testing.” Suffolk
University Law Review (winter).

Stewart, Alison. 2007. Genetics, Health Care and Public
Policy.New York: Cambridge University Press.
CROSS REFERENCES
American Medical Association; Disability Discrimination;
Employment Law; Fetal Rights; Privacy; Search and
Seizure.
GENEVA CONVENTIONS, 1949
The horrors of WORLD WAR II led nations to
recognize that existing rules governing the
conduct of warfare were inadequate to cover a
prolonged and expanded conflict. The resulting
efforts to codify new restrictions on belligerent
conflict led to the four conventions concluded
at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1949. These four
treaties related to (1) the treatment of prisoners
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
72 GENEVA CONVENTIONS, 1949
of war; (2) the alleviation of the suffering of
wounded and sick combatants in the field;
(3) the alleviation of the suffering of the
wounded, sick, and shipwrecked members of
the armed forces at sea; and (4) the protection
of civilian persons during war.
The International Committee of the Red
Cross was active in organizing the conferences
and preparing draft treaties that resulted in the
final conventions. In addition, the International
Red Cross assumed responsibility under por-
tions of the conventions to serve as a neutral
party to observe compliance with the conven-

tions and to perform humanitarian tasks.
According to Swedish researchers, 95 per-
cent of all deaths in
WORLD WAR I were suffered
by soldiers. In World War II, the figure dropped
to 50 percent—the remaining deaths were those
of civilians when their cities (e.g., London,
Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki) were
bombed. Unfortunately, the statistics worsened.
The civilian deaths from the Korean is usually
estimated at two to three million, and estimates
place the number of civilian deaths from the
VIETNAM WAR at approximately 365,000. Between
1974 and 1977 the Diplomatic Conference on
the Reaffirmation and Development of Interna-
tional Humanitarian Law, meeting in Geneva,
adopted two protocols to be added to the 1949
Geneva Conventions. One applies to interna-
tional armed conflicts and the other to non-
international armed conflicts. Both significantly
provide for enhanced protection of the non-
combatant, civilian populations.
Yet another concern for the effectiveness of
the Geneva Conventions surfaced over the years.
It became increasingly evident that, despite
“grave breaches” of protocols, the Geneva
Conventions lacked enforcement power. More-
over, those nations ratifying the conventions (59
initial signatories in 1949) were usually not the
offenders. (With the end of the

COLD WAR and the
collapse of the Soviet Union, each of the newly
independent states that succeeded the former
Soviet Union has adhered to the conventions
and, excepting Lithuania and Azerbaijan, the
additional protocols.) Many of the crimes against
humanity were (and are) being committed by
warring factions within a country, resulting in
genocides, ethnic or religious antagonism, and
ultimately the collapse of state structures. In
these circumstances,
RATIFICATION by the prior
state
ENTITY means little.
With a world community that in 2010
comprised more than 180 sover eign states, a
major overhaul of the Geneva Conventions
remained elusive. However, the world commu-
nity has united to create newer entities such as
the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia in 1993 and the adoption in
Rome of the
STATUTE of the INTERNATIONAL
CRIMINAL COURT
in 1998. These entities have
ADJUDICATION and sentencing authority, which
gives some enforcement power to prosecute and
punish those who commit the crimes against
humanity outlined in the conventions and
protocols. However, the power to identify,

pursue, and apprehend suspected violators
varies, depending on the circumstances.
FURTHER READINGS
Bugnion, Francis. 2000. “The Geneva Conventions of 12
August 1949: From the 1949 Diplomatic Conference to
the Dawn of the New Millennium.” International Affairs
76.
Goldstein, Richard. 2002. “International Law and Justice in
America’s War on Terrorism.” Social Research 69.
Jinks, Derek. 2008. The Rules of War: The Geneva
Conventions in the Age of Terror. New York: Oxford
Univ. Press.
Pictet, Jean S., ed. 1958. The Geneva Conventions of 12
August 1949: Commentary. Geneva, Switzerland: Inter-
national Committee of the Red Cross. Available online
at />conventions-1949.html; website home page:
(accessed September 4, 2002).
CROSS REFERENCES
International Court of Justice; International Law.
GENOCIDE
The crime of destroying or conspiring to destroy a
national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
GENOCIDE can be committed in a number of
ways, including killing members of a group or
causing them serious mental or bodily harm,
deliberately inflicting conditions that will bring
about a group’s physical destruction, imposing
measures on a group to prevent births, and
forcefully transferring children from one group
to another.

Genocide is a modern term. Coined in 1944
by Polish scholar of
INTERNATIONAL LAW Raphael
Lemkin, the word is a combination of the Greek
genos (race) with the Latin cide (killing). In his
book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, Lemkin
offered the definition of “a coordinated plan of
different actions aiming at the destruction of
essential foundations of the life of national
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
GENOCIDE 73
groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups
themselves” (Lemkin 1944, 79). The book
studied in particular detail the methodology of
the Nazi German genocide against European
Jews, among whom were his parents. Late r, he
served as an advisor to both the U.S. War
Department and the
NUREMBERG TRIALS of Nazi
leaders for
WAR CRIMES. He dedicated his life to
the development of international conventions
against genocide.
The contemporary archetype of modern
genocide is the Holocaust, in which German
Nazis starved, tortured, and executed an estimat-
ed six million European Jews, as well as millions
of other ethnic and social minorities, as part of an
effort to develop a master Aryan race. Immedi-
ately upon coming to power in Germany in 1933,

the Nazis began a systematic effort to eliminate
Jews from economic life. The Nazis defined
persons with three or four Jewish grandparents as
being Jewish, regardless of their religious beliefs
or affiliation with the Jewish community. Those
with one or two Jewish grandparents were known
as Mischlinge, or mixed-breeds. As non-Aryans,
Jews and Mischlinge lost their jobs and their
Aryan clients, and were forced to liquidate or sell
their businesses.
With the onset of
WORLD WAR II in 1939, the
Germans occupied the western half of Poland,
forcing nearly two million Jews to move into
crowded, captive ghettos. Many of these Jews
died of starvation and disease. In 1941 Germany
invaded the Soviet Union. The Nazis dispatched
3,000 troops to kill Soviet Jews on the spot,
most often by shooting them in ditches or
ravines on the outskirts of cities and towns.
Meanwhile the Nazis began to organize what
they termed a final solution to the Jewish
question in Europe. German Jews were required
to wear a yellow star stitched on their clothing
and were deported to ghettos in Poland and the
Soviet Union. Death camps equipped with
massive gas chambers w ere constructed at
several sites in occupied Poland, and large
crematories were built to incinerate the bodies.
Ultimately the Nazis transported millions of

Jews to concentration camps, in crowded freight
trains. Many did not survive the journey. Once
at the death camps, many more died from
starvation, disease, shooting, or routine gas-
sings, before Allied forces liberated the survivors
and forced the Nazis to surrender in 1945.
Following the exterminations of World War
II, the
UNITED NATIONS passed a resolution in an
effort to prevent such atrocities in the future.
Known as the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (78
U.N.T.S. 278 [Dec. 9, 1948]), the resolution
recognized genocide as an international crime
and provided for its punishment. Proposed and
partially formulated by Lemkin, who had
lobbied nations tirelessly for its adoption, the
convention also criminalized
CONSPIRACY to
commit genocide, direct and public incitement
to commit genocide, attempted genocide, and
complicity in genocide. Its definition of geno-
cide specified that a person must intend to
destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious
group. Thus, casualties of war are not necessar-
ily victims of genocide, even if they are all of the
same national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
The convention requires signatory nations to
enact laws to punish those found
GUILTY of

genocide, and allows any signatory state to ask
the United Nations to help prevent and
suppress acts of genocide.
The convention was, by itself, ineffective.
Article XI of the convention requires the United
Nations’ member countries to ratify the
DOCU-
MENT
, which many did not do for nearly 50 years.
The United States did not ratify the convention
until 1988. Before doing so, it conditioned its
obligations on certain understandings: (1) that
the phrase
INTENT to destroy in the convention’s
definition of genocide means “a
SPECIFIC INTENT to
destroy”; (2) that the term mental harm used in
the convention as an example of a genocidal
tactic, means “permanent impairment of mental
faculties through drugs or torture”; (3) that an
The bodies of
Rwandan genocide
victims before burial
in a mass grave. In
just 100 days in 1994,
an estimated 800,000
Tutsis and moderate
Hutus were killed
by members of the
Hutu majority.

AP IMAGES
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
74 GENOCIDE
agreement to grant EXTRADITION, which is part of
the convention, extends only to acts recognized
as criminal under both the country requesting
extradition and the country to which the request
is made; and (4) that acts in the course of armed
conflict or war do not constitute genocide unless
they are performed with the specific intent to
destroy a group of people.
On November 4, 1988, the United States
passed the Genocide Implementation Act of 1987
(18 U.S.C.A. § 1091 [1994]). This act created “a
new
FEDERAL of fense that prohibits the commis-
sion of acts with the specific intent to destroy, in
whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic,
racial or religious group; and to provide adequate
penalties for such acts” (S. Rep. No. 333, 100th
Cong., 2d Sess. 1 [1988], reprinted in 1988 U.S.C.
C.A.N. 4156).
In 1990 the U.S. Congress passed the
IMMIGRATION and Nationality Act (INA) (8 U.S.
C.A. § 1182), a comprehensive reform of
immigration laws. As part of this reform,
Congress mandated that
ALIENS guilty of geno-
cide are excluded from

ENTRY into the United
States, or deported when discovered. However,
the INA lacks a clear definition of genocide,
referring only to the U.N. convention drafted
more than 40 years earlier.
The unclear definition of genocide makes its
prevention and punishme nt difficult. Whether
massive, and often barbaric, loss of life within
ethnic, national, religious, or racial groups rises
to the crime of genocide—or is simply an
unpleasant by-product of war—is open to
debate. Until international trials in the late
1990s, the Holocaust of Nazi Germany was the
only example recognized throughout the inter-
national community as genocide.
Apart from the Holocaust, there have been a
number of other events that at least some
commentators have described as genocide.
These include the devastation of numerous
Native American tribes through battles with
European settlers and exposure to their diseases;
the killing of some 1.5 million Armenians by the
Turks during and after
WORLD WAR I; the deaths
of approximately 1.7 million Cambodians
under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia
between 1975 and 1979; the killing of hundreds
of thousands of civilians during the
VIETNAM
WAR

; the deaths of more than 20,000 Christian
Orthodox Serbs, Muslims, and Roman Catholic
Croats in “ethnic cleansing” arising out of the
civil war in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina
during the early 1990s; and the deaths of more
than one million Rwandan civilians in ethnic
clashes between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples,
also during the early 1990s.
During the 1990s, the United Nations
Security Council twice convened international
tribunals to prosecute genocide and other
flagrant humanitarian violations. The Interna-
tional Criminal Tribunals for Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) were convened in
1992 in Arusha, Tanzania, and in 1994 in the
Hague, The Netherlands, respectively. As the first
courts of their type since World War II, their
work, which sought to fix personal responsibility
for mass murder, continued into the new
millennium.
Given the vast scope and complicated
nature of trying crimes of genocide, neither
body has moved swiftly. By 2003 the ICTR had
indicted 52 people and had completed nine
trials stemming from the Rwanda slaughter,
while also becoming the first international
court in history to hand down a
CONVICTION
for genocide. By comparison, the ICTY had
indicted 87 people and had concluded 23 trials.

During 2002 worldwide attention focused upon
the opening of the ICTY’s long-awaited trial of
former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic,
ACCUSED of ordering atrocities in Bosnia, Croatia,
and Kosovo at various times between 1991 and
2001. Arrested after flouting the tribunal’s
INDICTMENT for two years, Milosevic’sdeliveryto
the Hague in 2001 made him the highest-ranking
European leader since the Nazi era to face trial
for war crimes.
Humanitarians, politicians, and interna-
tional legal scholars are struggling to find an
effective way to prevent and punish genocide.
Many have called for revising the genocide
convention to better meet the needs of the
current political, social, and economic environ-
ment, by creating a broader definition of
genocide and establishing procedural guidelines.
Still others have proposed international military
INTERVENTION in order to prevent or stop
genocide.
FURTHER READINGS
BBC News. 2003. February 20; “The Charges against
Milosevic.” BBC News World Edition. Available online
at />website home page:
(accessed July 26, 2009).
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
GENOCIDE 75
Chrisopoulos, Paul. J. 1995. “Giving Meaning to the Term
‘Genocide’s as it Applies to U.S. Immigration Policy.”

Loyola of Los Angeles International & Comparative Law
Journal (October).
Heidenrich, John G. “The Father of ‘Genocide’—and Its
Biggest Foe.” The Christian Science Monitor (June 27,
2001).
Kennicott, Philip. “Nearly Nine Decades after the
Massacres, a Battle Still Rages to Define ‘Genocide’.”
The Washington Post. (November 24, 2002). Available
online at />pagename=article&node =&contentId=A26543 -2002
Nov22&notFound=true; website home page: http://
www.washingtonpost.com (accessed July 26, 2009).
Lemkin, Raphael. 1944. “Genocide.” In Axis Rule in
Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation—Analysis of
Government—Proposals for Redress. Washington, D.C.:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Available
online at />AxisRule1944-1.htm; website home page: http://www.
preventgenocide.org (accessed July 26, 2009).
Yacoubian, George S., Jr. 2003. “Evaluating the Efficacy of
the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and
the Former Yugoslavia.” World Affairs 165 (January 1).
CROSS REFE RENCES
Hitler, Adolf; International Law; Nuremberg Trials; United
Nations.
GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT
Although agreements between individuals often
create legally binding commitments, instances
may arise in which mutual promises yield no
legally enforceable agreement. Sometimes called
“gentlemen’s agreements,” parties may honor
them because moral obligations compel obser-

vance or because future relations will be more
difficult if the present arrangement is broken.
International organizations likewise may de-
pend on such informal arrangements so as to
maintain
COMITY among members.
Occasionally the enabling treaties that create
an international organization will leave some
procedural or
VOTING matter unresolved. Rather
than amend the formal
DOCUMENT, which is
usually a difficult task, an informal working
agreement will develop to resolve a particular
problem. As long as the consensus holds to
honor the informal agreement, there is no need
to embody it into a legal document.
GERRYMANDER
The process of dividing a particular state or
territory into election districts in such a manner as
to accomplish an unlawful purpose, such as to give
one party a greater advantage.
State constitutions or amendments to those
constitutions empower state legislatures, and
sometimes state or federal courts, to apportion
and reapportion election districts. This gener-
ally means that states may draw and redraw the
lines around election districts for offices ranging
from local to congressional. It can also mean
that states may calculate and recalculate the

numbers of representatives in election districts.
Any form of unfair
APPORTIONMENT may be called
gerrymandering, but generally, a
GERRYMANDER is
understood to be invalid redistricting.
Redistricting is usually used to adjust the
populations of election districts to achieve
equality in representation among those districts.
Sometimes, however, it is used for unlawful
ulterior motives. Then it crosses the line to
become gerrymandering.
The classic example of a gerrymander is a
legislative redistricting scheme designed to
benefit the party in power. Assume that a state
legislature has redrawn its
VOTING districts to
divide and fold all communities that vote
predominantly Democratic into larger commu-
nities that vote Republican. This is a political
gerrymander. Such redistricting decreases the
likelihood of Democratic representation in the
state legislature because the Democratic vote in
each new district is diluted by the predominant
Republican vote.
The term gerrymander was inspired by an
1812 Massachusetts redistricting scheme that
favored the party of Governor Elbridge Gerry.
Portraitist Gilbert C. Stuart noted that one new
election district had the shape of a salamander.

Stuart drew an outline of the district, put a
salamander’s head on one end, and called the
creature a Gerry-mander.
The gerrymander has been used by state
legislatures ever since. It thrived all the way
through the 1950s, when many southeastern
states were reapportioned in an effort to weaken
the voting power of African Americans. This
usually involved the drawing of complex,
irregularly shaped election districts. A legislature
could divide and fold predominantly African
American communities into surrounding dis-
tricts with large blocs of white voters. Such
schemes diluted the vote of African Americans,
placed their representation in faraway commu-
nities, and effectively prevented African Amer-
icans from expressing their collective will in
ELECTIONS.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
76 GENTLEMEN’ S AGREEMENT
In 1960 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down
the first gerrymander scheme it reviewed, in
Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S. Ct. 125,
5 L. Ed. 2d 110 (1960). In Gomillion, the
Alabama legislature altered the city limits of
Tuskegee to remove all but four of the city’s400
African American voters. It changed the city
limits of Tuskegee, for election purposes, from a
square to, according to the Court, “an uncouth
twenty-eight-sided figure.” According to the

Court, the redistricting discriminated against
African Americans and violated the
EQUAL
PROTECTION
Clause of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT.
Gomillion did not establish that the drawing
of election districts was always a proper matter
for the courts. Before Gomillion, the Court had
refused to revie w gerrymandering claims, hold-
ing that the issue of reapportionment was
political and beyond the reach of the courts.
The Court heard Gomillion only because the
issue of racial
DISCRIMINATION lifted the contro-
versy out of the arena traditiona lly beyond the
power of the courts.
In 1962 the U.S. Supreme Court took the
first step in establishing its right to review all
districting, with its decision in
BAKER V. CARR , 369
U.S. 186, 82 S. Ct. 691, 7 L. Ed. 2d 663. At issue
in Baker was a decades-old Tennessee appor-
tionment. According to urban Tennessee voters,
the outdated apport ionment was a “silent
gerrymander” or a “malapportionment.” Al-
though the population in urban election
districts had increased, Tennessee had made
no changes to reflect this population shift; thus,
sparsely populated rural districts had the same
representation in the state legislature as did

densely populated urban districts. The Court in
Baker did not reach a decision on the validity of
the Tennessee districting; Baker established only
that the issue of districting was
JUSTICIABLE and
not merely a political question.
The Court next established the “one person,
one vote” requirement for
FEDERAL elections, in
Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 84 S. Ct. 526, 11
L. Ed. 2d 481 (1964). This requirement, which
held that voting districts should be roughly
equal in population, was extended to the states
in
REYNOLDS V. SIMS, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S. Ct. 1362,
12 L. Ed. 2d 506 (1964). In Wesberry, the Court
struck down a Georgia redistricting statute (Ga.
Code § 34-2301) because its voting districts
were unequal in population. Georgia’s Fifth
Congressional District, largely populated by
African Americans, was two to three times the
size of other districts in the state. As a result, the
African Americans in the Fifth District received
less representation in Congress than persons in
the other districts. According to the Court, this
violated Article I, Section 2 of the U.S.
CONSTITUTION, which states that U.S. Represen-
tatives were to be “apportioned among the
several States according to their respective
Numbers” (Wesberry).

Since these seminal cases, courts have
become intimately involved in the review of
apportionment, reapportionment, and redis-
tricting. In their review of districting schemes,
courts use
CENSUS figures to compare election
district populations for equality of representa-
tion. Courts also examine census figures for
racial populations and compare overall percen-
tages with percentages in election districts.
Courts have developed redistricting princi-
ples that favor compact, contiguous election
districts that respect already existing municipal
BOUNDARIES. Gerrymanders may be easy to
recognize because they usually produce elec-
tion districts that are irregularly shaped.
However, not all irregularly shaped election
districts are the result of gerrymanders. Indeed,
Congress has encouraged the creation of
“majority-minority” voting districts, which
often call for an inventive drawing of election
districts. Majority-minority districts are those
Portraitist Gilbert
C. Stuart’s depiction
of an 1812
Massachusetts
redistricting scheme
favoring the political
party of Governor
Elbridge Gerry was

the inspiration for the
term gerrymander.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
GERRYMANDER 77