Domicide (from Latin domus, meaning home or abode, and caedo, meaning deliberate killing), is the destruction of housing for corporate, political, strategic or bureaucratic reasoning.[1] It can also encompass the widespread destruction of a living environment, forcing the incumbent humans to move elsewhere.[2][3] In a human rights context, domicide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of housing and basic infrastructure, making an area uninhabitable.[4] The concept of domicide originated in the 1970s, but only assumed its present meaning in 2022, after a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing.[4][5][6]
Notable historical examples of domicide include: the Bombing of Tokyo, which was the most destructive and deadly non-nuclear bombing in human history,[7] the bombing of Warsaw and Dresden and the destruction perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.[8] Experts have argued that international law should be amended to consider domicide a war crime.[9] Balakrishnan Rajagopal, advisor to the United Nations on dams and Special Rapporteur on adequate housing has argued that Israel did domicide in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war.[10][11]
J. Douglas Porteous and Sandra E Smith refer to resettlement projects in British Columbia in Canada in favour of the construction of an hydro-electric dam as an example of domicide.[1]
^Long, Tony (9 March 2011). "March 9, 1945: Burning the Heart Out of the Enemy". Wired. 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.