Genocide is the deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group. While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, the most prominent definition in international law is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of the CPPCG defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious