Domicide

{{Short description|Deliberate destruction of community resources and homes}} {{multiple image | perrow = 2 | align=right | direction= horizontal | total_width=370 | header = Notable examples of domicide | image1 = Damage in Gaza Strip during the October 2023 - 29.jpg | caption1 = Bombing of the Gaza Strip | image2 = Tokyo-kushu-hikaku.jpg | caption2 = Bombing of Tokyo | image3 = Fotothek df ps 0000010 Blick vom Rathausturm.jpg | caption3 = Bombing of Dresden | image4 = Płonąca oblężona Warszawa.jpg | caption4 = Bombing of Warsaw }} '''Domicide''' (from Latin ''domus'', meaning home or abode, and ''-cide'', meaning deliberate killing) is "the deliberate destruction of home by human agency in pursuit of specific goals, which causes suffering to the victims."<ref name=Porteous2001>{{cite book|first1=J. Douglas|last1=Porteous|first2=Sandra E.|last2=Smith|title=Domicide: The Global Destruction of Home|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press|year=2001|isbn=9780773569614}}</ref>{{rp|12}} It includes the widespread destruction of a home environment, forcing the homedwellers to move elsewhere.<ref name=Porteous2001/>{{rp|12}}<ref name=Sullivan>{{cite news|first=Becky|last=Sullivan|title=What is 'domicide,' and why has war in Gaza brought new attention to the term?|work=National Public Radio|date=9 February 2024|url=https://www.npr.org/2024/02/09/1229625376/domicide-israel-gaza-palestinians}}</ref>

Scholars have described domicide as a multidimensional assault on human dignity that undermines security, identity, memory, community, and the possibility of return. In recent scholarship, it has been conceptualized as a severe violation of the human right to home and as a mechanism frequently associated with forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism, and atrocity crimes like genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

== Background == The concept of domicide originated in 2001 with J. Douglas Porteous and Sandra E. Smith's ''Domicide: The Global Destruction of Home''. Porteous and Smith argue domicide is not a new phenomenon and can be perpetrated in two ways. First, everyday domicide refers to the destruction of homes that "occurs continuously all over the world and can affect everyone except the wealthy and those who are its perpetrators… [It] comes about because of the normal, mundane operation of the world's political economy."<ref name=Porteous2001/>{{rp|106}} This can include, but is not limited to: urban redevelopment, economic restructuring, gentrification, and public infrastructure construction. Extreme domicide, by contrast, "involved major, planned operations that occur rather sporadically in time but often affect large areas and change the lives of considerable numbers of people."<ref name=Porteous2001/>{{rp|64}} This can include: scorched earth campaigns, strategic bombing, forced resettlement, securitization, ethnic cleansing, colonial expansion, and more. Martin Coward argues the built environment is a material basis for political life, and its destruction is inherently an assault on both human communities and the conditions that make plural coexistence possible.<ref>Martin Coward, ''Urbicide: The Politics of Urban Destruction'' (London: Routledge, 2009).</ref>

In February 2022, Bree Akesson and Andrew R. Basso proposed the criminalization of domicide through a Convention Against Domicide in international law in their book, ''From Bureaucracy to Bullets: Extreme Domicide and the Right to Home''.<ref name=Akesson2022>{{Cite book|first1=Bree|last1=Akesson|first2=Andrew R.|last2=Basso|title=From Bureaucracy to Bullets: Extreme Domicide and the Right to Home|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2022|isbn=978-1978802728}}</ref>{{rp|202–206}} The authors argue the deliberate destruction of home is a multidimensional assault on human dignity and should be recognized as an extreme violation of the right to home and a central mechanism of atrocity. The authors provide a systematic normative and human rights-based theory that grounds domicide in what they call the human right to home.<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|20–35}} Akesson and Basso also argue domicidal violence can be indirect (e.g., lawfare, legislating against and repressing groups, and political coercion) or direct (e.g., using physical state or non-state violence to destroy homes). They construct a theoretical model to predict domicide in their work.<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|36–50}}

Further operationalizing domicide as a justiciable crime, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, echoed and augmented these calls for domicide's criminalization in a July 2022 report to the United Nations General Assembly.<ref name=Rajagopal2022>{{cite web|url=https://reliefweb.int/report/world/report-special-rapporteur-adequate-housing-component-right-adequate-standard-living-and-right-non-discrimination-context-balakrishnan-rajagopal-a77190-enarruzh|title=Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context, Balakrishnan Rajagopal (A/77/190)|work=ReliefWeb|date=28 October 2022|accessdate=12 May 2026}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Netta|last=Ahituv|title=Amid Israeli Destruction in Gaza, a New Crime Against Humanity Emerges: Domicide|work=Haaretz|date=4 January 2024|url=https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-04/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/amid-israeli-destruction-in-gaza-a-new-crime-against-humanity-emerges-domicide/0000018c-d585-d751-ad8d-ffa5965e0000}}</ref><ref>{{cite press release|title='Domicide' must be recognised as an international crime: UN expert|publisher=Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights|date=28 October 2022|url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/domicide-must-be-recognised-international-crime-un-expert}}</ref> Rajagopal's report argued for the integration of domicide as a crime against humanity in the Rome Statute. He has since published widely calling for the criminalization of domicide and noting processes of domicide globally, including a 2026 report which highlighted domicide in Gaza, Myanmar, Sudan, and Ukraine.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.un.org/unispal/document/domicide-report-26feb26/|title=Domicide: Mass destruction of housing and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, Myanmar, Sudan, and Ukraine|first=Balakrishnan|last=Rajagopal|date=26 February 2026}}</ref> The issue of domicide is now central to the mission of the Special Rapporteur.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-housing/domicide-conflict-and-reconstruction|author=Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing|title=Domicide, conflict, and reconstruction|accessdate=12 May 2026}}</ref>

== Defining Home ==

Jan Willem Duyvendak argues:

{{blockquote|a house only becomes a home as meanings and feelings—in other words, a certain symbolic value—are attributed to it. This implies that the material world in itself has no real 'home value'; for this it needs meanings and feelings to be attached.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jan Willem|last=Duyvendak|title=The Politics of Home: Belonging and Nostalgia in Western Europe and the United States|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2011|isbn=9780230309364}}</ref>}}

He further noted home is a place of familiarity, haven, and heaven, noting the socially constructed meanings attached to material house structures. Akesson and Basso write, "the materials that make a home—straw, cement, bricks—come together to create the structure of the house. But once the house's inhabitants start to experience it as a place of feeling and memory, which may happen immediately, then it becomes a home."<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|6}} Moreover, the destruction of home is not limited to the house structure itself as home extends beyond structures and includes attachment, identity, community, and ontological security.<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|7–15}} Homes can be considered castles (as a place for family life, center of identity, and place of security) as well as cages (as an unhealthy space, a lack of privacy, and a prison).<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|7–15}} Ammar Azzouz argues home is more than a shelter; it is a space of memory and identity.<ref name=Azzouz2025>{{cite book|first=Ammar|last=Azzouz|title=Domicide: Architecture, War, and the Destruction of Home in Syria|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2025|isbn=9781350248144}}</ref>

== Domicidal Violence ==

The protections for home in international human rights laws and norms are underdeveloped but exist within an "overlapping consensus against extreme domicide."<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|21}} The right to home is grounded in the human right to an "adequate standard of living." This has been interpreted to cover necessities like water, food, health, among others.<ref name=UDHR>''Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' (1948)</ref><ref>''International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights'' (1966)</ref> The right to home also overlaps with broad protections for property rights, freedom of residence, and rights against unlawful interference.<ref name=UDHR/><ref>''International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights'' (1966)</ref><ref>''International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination'' (1965)</ref><ref>''Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women'' (1979)</ref><ref>''United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples'' (2007)</ref> The right to home intersects with the rights of persons with disabilities, women's rights, child rights, Indigenous rights, and non-discrimination rights, as well.<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|20–25}}

In the laws of armed conflict, there are general prohibitions on the wanton destruction or aerial bombardment of cities and towns, destruction of private property not of a military necessity, and against reprisals.<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|26–31}} Domicide is often a cooperative mechanism with processes of atrocity crime perpetration, including forced displacement, as well.<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|31–34}}<ref name=Rajagopal2022/> Scholars argue domicide is used to punish dissenting communities, reshape demographic and political landscapes, divide peoples, exert state control, expropriate property, erase communities and their territorial presence, and prevent return.<ref name=Porteous2001/><ref name=Akesson2022/><ref name=Azzouz2025/><ref name=Rajagopal2022/> Extreme domicide often incorporates intertwined material, legal, political, social, and symbolic violence.

Domicide typically results in three different outcomes for home structures. First, homes could be razed to the ground. Second, home structures may be left standing and assimilated by another group. Third, homes may be left intentionally vacant to create communal dividing lines or barriers.<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|15}}

Domicide can be an event that occurs quickly, or a process that plays out over time and space. Successive campaigns perpetrated against the same targeted group over time where domicidal violence compounds on itself can also be called "cumulative domicide."<ref name=Basso2020>{{cite journal|first1=Andrew R.|last1=Basso|first2=Patrick|last2=Ciaschi|first3=Bree|last3=Akesson|title=Cumulative Domicide: The Sayisi Dene and Destruction of Home in Mid-Twentieth Century Canada|journal=Current Sociology|volume=68|number=5|year=2020|pages=651–668}}</ref>

Scholars also note that reconstruction processes can reproduce domicidal outcomes when rebuilding excludes displaced residents, formalizes expropriation, or prevents return, a process sometimes described as "domicidal reconstruction."<ref name = Azzouz2025/>

Recognizing domicide as a distinct form of violence has been proposed as a means of improving atrocity prevention, early warning, victim-centered reparations, and international legal accountability.<ref name=Akesson2022/>{{rp|193–206}}

== Examples == Notable historical examples of domicide include: the American Bombing of Tokyo, which was the most destructive and deadly non-nuclear bombing in human history,<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Long |first=Tony |date=9 March 2011 |title=March 9, 1945: Burning the Heart Out of the Enemy |url=https://www.wired.com/2011/03/0309incendiary-bombs-kill-100000-tokyo/ |magazine=Wired |quote=1945: In the single deadliest air raid of World War II, 330 American B-29s rain incendiary bombs on Tokyo, touching off a firestorm that kills upwards of 100,000 people, burns a quarter of the city to the ground, and leaves a million homeless. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250118073513/https://www.wired.com/2011/03/0309incendiary-bombs-kill-100000-tokyo/ |archive-date=18 January 2025}}</ref> the bombing of Warsaw, Dresden and Königsberg, and the destruction perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.<ref>{{cite book |last=Collins |first=Andrew E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BDfqfikFDmsC&q=topocide&pg=PA109 |title=Disaster and Development |publisher=Routledge |year=2009 |isbn=9780203879238 |page=109}}</ref>

The Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip is considered to be one of the most destructive campaigns in recent history.<ref>{{cite news |last=Frankel |first=Julia |date=11 January 2024 |title=Israel's military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say |url=https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-bombs-destruction-death-toll-scope-419488c511f83c85baea22458472a796 |work=AP News |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250130173115/https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-bombs-destruction-death-toll-scope-419488c511f83c85baea22458472a796 |archive-date=30 January 2025}}</ref> Balakrishnan Rajagopal, United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, accused Israel of committing domicide in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war.<ref>{{Cite web |date=5 March 2024 |title=UN rights expert condemns 'systematic' war-time mass destruction of homes |url=https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147272 |access-date=29 August 2024 |website=UN News |publisher=United Nations |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250101063103/https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147272 |archive-date=1 January 2025}}</ref>

Porteus and Smith also highlight the Indian Removal Act as a definite case of domicide.<ref name=Porteous2001/>{{rp|77–80}}

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Further reading== {{See also |Bibliography of Genocide studies}} * {{Cite chapter |last=Hassoun |first=Abdo |chapter=Domicide in Gaza: How the Recent War Has Devastated Homes and Lives |year=2025 |title=War on Gaza |pages=113–129 |editor-last=Hassoun |editor-first=Abdo |place=Cham |publisher=Springer Nature Switzerland |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-031-88500-6_8 |isbn=978-3-031-88499-3 |last2=Fayad |first2=Mariam |last3=Wasim |first3=Nida |last4=Irfan |first4=Khansa |last5=Kashash |first5=Rima |last6=Ali |first6=Khaled Abu |last7=Allah |first7=Mones Abu Obayd |last8=Youssef |first8=Chantal}}

==External links== {{Wiktionary|domicide}} *[https://fnl.mit.edu/january-march-2024/domicide-the-mass-destruction-of-homes-should-be-a-crime-against-humanity/ Domicide: The Mass Destruction of Homes Should Be a Crime Against Humanity], MIT Faculty Newsletter (January—March 2024)

Category:Genocide studies Category:International criminal law Category:Destruction of buildings Category:Military doctrines Category:Israeli war crimes Category:Strategic bombing *