Genocide in Security Council debates
Between 1946 and 2026, the UN Security Council records contain 182,684 speeches from 9,919 meetings. Of these, 4,576 (2.50%) mention genocide or related forms, such as genocidal. Explore when the word appears, who uses it and what the surrounding passages say.
One square is 1,000 speeches; a filled square, speeches that mention the word.
- Speeches in the corpus
- 182,684
- Speeches using genocide
- 4,576
- Occurrences of the word
- 8,611
- Peak year by share
- 1994
across 9,919 meeting records, 92.55 million words
2.50%† of all speeches. Forms such as genocide and genocidal count together.
1.88 per speech that uses it
the largest proportion of speeches; 2024 had the most occurrences
Counts and speech volume
The records contain 1,096 occurrences in 2024, compared with 226 in 1994. Annual speech numbers also changed: 2025, the last year the record covers whole, has 2.87 times the first year's total.The record ends on 23 June 2026, so 2026 is a part-year: its counts are drawn as an outline and are not comparable with a full year's; its share of speeches is. Compare counts with the share of speeches using the term to distinguish repeated mentions from wider use across speeches.
Testing for a change
The test for genocide identifies 1978 as the best-supported split; the later share is 5.19 times the earlier share. This comparison summarises two periods. It neither dates a historical turning point nor explains why usage changed.
How does use of genocide compare with related terms over time?
Computed from the recordcorelegaldescriptive
View the drawn shares as a table
| Year | genocide | ethnic cleansing | crimes against humanity | war crimes | massacre | mass killing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Register | core | legal | legal | legal | descriptive | descriptive |
| 1946 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.11% | 0.04% | 0.26% | 0.00% |
| 1947 | 0.03% | 0.00% | 0.08% | 0.00% | 0.28% | 0.00% |
| 1948 | 0.49% | 0.00% | 0.07% | 0.02% | 1.23% | 0.10% |
| 1949 | 0.08% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.41% | 0.00% |
| 1950 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.06% | 0.56% | 0.00% |
| 1951 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.39% | 0.00% |
| 1952 | 0.11% | 0.00% | 0.23% | 0.11% | 0.56% | 0.00% |
| 1953 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 1.61% | 0.00% |
| 1954 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.95% | 0.00% |
| 1955 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.95% | 0.00% |
| 1956 | 0.12% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.35% | 0.00% |
| 1957 | 1.86% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.51% | 0.00% |
| 1958 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.34% | 0.00% |
| 1959 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| 1960 | 0.99% | 0.00% | 0.25% | 0.41% | 1.81% | 0.49% |
| 1961 | 1.32% | 0.00% | 0.44% | 0.00% | 3.25% | 0.26% |
| 1962 | 0.19% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.19% | 0.19% |
| 1963 | 1.80% | 0.00% | 0.33% | 0.00% | 1.64% | 0.00% |
| 1964 | 1.18% | 0.00% | 0.59% | 0.07% | 3.90% | 0.15% |
| 1965 | 0.97% | 0.00% | 0.13% | 0.00% | 0.90% | 0.00% |
| 1966 | 0.08% | 0.00% | 0.08% | 0.42% | 0.68% | 0.00% |
| 1967 | 0.98% | 0.00% | 0.16% | 0.57% | 1.72% | 0.25% |
| 1968 | 0.84% | 0.00% | 0.30% | 0.60% | 1.51% | 0.06% |
| 1969 | 1.05% | 0.00% | 1.05% | 0.29% | 1.34% | 0.00% |
| 1970 | 0.57% | 0.00% | 0.46% | 0.00% | 1.03% | 0.00% |
| 1971 | 0.75% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.94% | 0.00% |
| 1972 | 1.47% | 0.00% | 1.03% | 0.44% | 2.64% | 0.07% |
| 1973 | 1.04% | 0.00% | 0.18% | 0.24% | 2.63% | 0.00% |
| 1974 | 0.87% | 0.00% | 1.38% | 0.00% | 3.20% | 0.00% |
| 1975 | 0.37% | 0.00% | 0.09% | 0.00% | 1.95% | 0.09% |
| 1976 | 0.98% | 0.00% | 0.39% | 0.29% | 3.61% | 0.15% |
| 1977 | 1.34% | 0.00% | 1.26% | 0.17% | 5.27% | 0.42% |
| 1978 | 2.60% | 0.00% | 0.50% | 0.00% | 4.70% | 0.37% |
| 1979 | 2.81% | 0.00% | 0.47% | 0.23% | 2.58% | 0.00% |
| 1980 | 1.55% | 0.00% | 1.16% | 0.23% | 3.25% | 0.00% |
| 1981 | 1.72% | 0.00% | 0.74% | 0.12% | 2.83% | 0.00% |
| 1982 | 3.11% | 0.00% | 0.72% | 0.06% | 5.33% | 0.00% |
| 1983 | 2.78% | 0.00% | 0.77% | 0.06% | 3.96% | 0.06% |
| 1984 | 1.20% | 0.00% | 2.15% | 0.00% | 2.15% | 0.12% |
| 1985 | 1.49% | 0.00% | 1.49% | 0.35% | 4.18% | 0.14% |
| 1986 | 1.01% | 0.00% | 0.94% | 0.13% | 3.17% | 0.00% |
| 1987 | 2.83% | 0.00% | 3.05% | 0.00% | 3.73% | 0.11% |
| 1988 | 0.59% | 0.00% | 1.06% | 0.00% | 2.70% | 0.12% |
| 1989 | 1.14% | 0.00% | 0.45% | 0.00% | 1.25% | 0.00% |
| 1990 | 0.95% | 0.00% | 0.48% | 0.19% | 4.76% | 0.19% |
| 1991 | 0.76% | 0.00% | 0.91% | 0.15% | 0.61% | 0.00% |
| 1992 | 2.32% | 5.98% | 1.93% | 1.16% | 5.21% | 0.29% |
| 1993 | 3.83% | 7.87% | 1.13% | 2.34% | 2.27% | 0.14% |
| 1994 | 6.50% | 7.69% | 1.19% | 1.97% | 7.93% | 0.12% |
| 1995 | 4.23% | 4.05% | 1.56% | 1.25% | 3.11% | 0.37% |
| 1996 | 3.12% | 0.69% | 0.56% | 0.93% | 1.99% | 0.06% |
| 1997 | 1.09% | 0.91% | 0.18% | 1.45% | 0.63% | 0.18% |
| 1998 | 3.09% | 1.01% | 1.08% | 1.44% | 1.94% | 0.58% |
| 1999 | 4.40% | 3.47% | 2.66% | 2.66% | 2.88% | 0.38% |
| 2000 | 3.45% | 1.21% | 2.31% | 3.28% | 1.71% | 0.11% |
| 2001 | 2.79% | 0.80% | 1.71% | 1.61% | 1.43% | 0.07% |
| 2002 | 2.46% | 0.43% | 1.88% | 3.70% | 2.52% | 0.18% |
| 2003 | 1.97% | 0.34% | 2.15% | 3.41% | 1.35% | 0.09% |
| 2004 | 3.40% | 0.92% | 2.51% | 4.26% | 1.19% | 0.03% |
| 2005 | 3.87% | 1.68% | 3.27% | 4.58% | 1.12% | 0.14% |
| 2006 | 3.22% | 1.13% | 2.93% | 3.64% | 1.55% | 0.00% |
| 2007 | 3.74% | 1.45% | 3.65% | 3.96% | 0.26% | 0.04% |
| 2008 | 2.35% | 1.28% | 3.05% | 3.72% | 1.01% | 0.03% |
| 2009 | 2.67% | 0.88% | 3.43% | 4.61% | 1.09% | 0.03% |
| 2010 | 2.32% | 0.75% | 2.25% | 2.91% | 0.78% | 0.03% |
| 2011 | 1.73% | 0.45% | 2.65% | 3.58% | 0.75% | 0.12% |
| 2012 | 2.55% | 0.84% | 4.30% | 4.11% | 1.84% | 0.09% |
| 2013 | 4.05% | 1.13% | 5.49% | 6.62% | 1.41% | 0.22% |
| 2014 | 5.19% | 1.06% | 5.19% | 5.54% | 1.83% | 0.18% |
| 2015 | 4.37% | 0.80% | 4.68% | 5.60% | 1.49% | 0.18% |
| 2016 | 2.98% | 0.72% | 3.21% | 4.92% | 1.05% | 0.08% |
| 2017 | 2.36% | 0.95% | 3.70% | 4.52% | 0.63% | 0.09% |
| 2018 | 2.28% | 0.77% | 3.34% | 4.45% | 0.84% | 0.08% |
| 2019 | 1.95% | 0.38% | 2.60% | 3.66% | 0.96% | 0.11% |
| 2020 | 1.61% | 0.25% | 2.04% | 2.78% | 0.99% | 0.00% |
| 2021 | 2.41% | 0.25% | 2.48% | 3.22% | 0.96% | 0.32% |
| 2022 | 2.79% | 0.46% | 3.62% | 5.98% | 1.14% | 0.12% |
| 2023 | 2.75% | 0.60% | 3.38% | 5.45% | 1.36% | 0.16% |
| 2024 | 5.94% | 1.02% | 2.64% | 4.89% | 2.42% | 0.34% |
| 2025 | 3.96% | 0.96% | 2.12% | 4.26% | 2.05% | 0.51% |
| 2026 | 2.92% | 0.31% | 3.17% | 4.43% | 1.08% | 0.46% |
Each row is scaled to its own maximum · the number at the right is the share of all 182,684 speeches in the period
Test a claim against the record
- Chronology When the word was used. Set it beside related terms and 59 reference dates, year by year or month by month.
- Actors Who used it, measured against each speaker’s own speeches, with Council membership.
- Concordance What was said. All 8,611 matches for
genocid*, each with its sentence and the meeting symbol to cite.