| Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide | |
|---|---|
| Signed | 9 December 1948 |
| Location | Paris |
| Effective | 12 January 1951 |
| Signatories | 41 |
| Parties | 140 (Complete List) |
| Depositary | Secretary-General of the United Nations |
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948 as General Assembly Resolution 260. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951.[1] It defines genocide in legal terms, and is the culmination of years of campaigning by lawyer Raphael Lemkin. Yaur Auron writes "When Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide in 1944 he cited the 1915 annihilation of Armenians as a seminal example of genocide".[2] All participating countries are advised to prevent and punish actions of genocide in war and in peacetime. The number of states that have ratified the convention is currently 140.
Contents |
Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as
...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- (a) Killing members of the group;
- (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[3]
Article 3 defines the crimes that can be punished under the convention:
- (a) Genocide;
- (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
- (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
- (d) Attempt to commit genocide;
- (e) Complicity in genocide.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 3[3]
The convention was passed to outlaw actions similar to the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II. The first draft of the Convention included political killings, but the USSR[4] along with some other nations would not accept that actions against groups identified as holding similar political opinions or social status would constitute genocide,[5] so these stipulations were subsequently removed in a political and diplomatic compromise.
Provisos granting immunity from prosecution for genocide without its consent were made by Bahrain, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, the United States, Vietnam, Yemen, and Yugoslavia.[6][7] Prior to its ratification of the convention, the United States Senate was treated to a speech by Senator William Proxmire in favor of this treaty every day that the Senate was in session between 1967 and 1986.
The first time that the 1948 law was enforced occurred on 2 September 1998 when the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide. The lead prosecutor in this case was Pierre-Richard Prosper. Two days later, Jean Kambanda became the first head of government to be convicted of genocide.
The first state to be found in breach of the Genocide convention was Serbia. In the Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro case the International Court of Justice presented its judgment on 26 February 2007. It cleared Serbia of direct involvement in genocide during the Bosnian war,[8] but ruled that Belgrade did breach international law by failing to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, and for failing to try or transfer the persons accused of genocide to the ICTY, in order to comply with its obligations under Articles I and VI of the Genocide Convention, in particular in respect of General Ratko Mladić.[9][10]
In 2010, Janez Janša, the former prime minister of Slovenia in collaboration with the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, a non-governmental organisation based in Berlin, initiated “The Initiative on the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide". This initiative or "model convention" focuses on achieving a fast-track, concrete legal resolution to halting current instances of genocide taking place in conflict zones across the world. The dominant feature of this initiative is the incorporation of the "Responsibility to Protect" into the Convention, with the primary aim of preventing mass civilian casualties. This initiative has not yet been successful in amending the Genocide Convention.