According to this Newsweek article, the term "ethnic cleansing" started in Bosnia. It doesn't seem that new to me, considering that the entire Nazi "Final Solution" is really Ethnic Cleansing done very efficiently. Wikipedia agrees with Newsweek but towards the end of its entry aobut the subject does mention the Nazis' efforts to make Germany judenrein (lit. "Jew Clean"): "cleansed of Jews".(cf. racial hygiene) as an example.
A more modern example of Ethnic Cleansing is Ariel Sharon's and Ehud Olmert's Disengagement Plan, which forcefully transferred/expelled thousands of innocent Jews from their homes, for no reason other than the fact that they're Jewish.
More from Wikipedia on Ethnic Cleansing:
Ethnic cleansing as a crime under international law
There is no formal legal definition of ethnic cleansing.[7]However, ethnic cleansing in the broad sense - the forcible deportation of a population - is defined as a crime against humanity under the statutes of both International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)[8]. The gross human-rights violations integral to stricter definitions of ethnic cleansing are treated as separate crimes falling under the definitions for genocide or crimes against humanity of the statutes.[9]
The UN Commission of Experts (established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780) held that the practices associated with ethnic cleansing "constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore ... such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention." The UN General Assembly condemned "ethnic cleansing" and racial hatred in a 1992 resolution.[10]
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