"The authors first examine the legal and social-theoretical criteria by which mass killings have been categorized as genocide and debate the extent to which various definitions may lead to conceptual misuse. Four case studies then cast the theoretical discussion into the historical realm by recounting the mass killings of the Armenians under the Ottoman Empire; the Turkish suppression of the Kurds and the Iraqi chemical warfare waged against its Kurdish population; the plight of the East Timorese after the Indonesian invasion; and the brutal fate of the Cambodians under Khmer Rouge rule." "This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of human rights, international law, political science, sociology, and history."--Jacket.