Genocide recognition politics

Genocide recognition politics are efforts to have a certain event (re)interpreted as a "genocide" or officially designated as such. Such efforts may occur regardless of whether the event meets the definition of genocide laid out in the 1948 Genocide Convention. Acts of genocide recognition include acknowledgement of genocide in the adoption of laws, parliamentary resolutions, and official speeches, although according to lawyer Dean Kalimniou, institutional recognition by a public act of state is considered to have a profound distinction above any individual remark. Recognition politics may also involve so-called "memory laws", including legislation that mandates recognition or criminalizes denial, which scholars debate in terms of free speech, historical authority, and international relations.

In countries with settler colonial pasts, recognition of colonial genocides is difficult as the national past could be called into question. Most recorded genocides have been perpetrated by states.

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