Some scholars, have defined domicide to mean the massive and deliberate destruction of homes, in order to cause human suffering. UN Special Rapporteur Balakrishnan Rajagopal offers a more expansive view of that concept. Etymologically rooted in the Latin terms domus (home) and caedo (to strike, or to kill), domicide thus refers not only to the deliberate destruction of the physical structures of homes, but also to the systematic violation of housing rights in violation of international law.