Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
UNITED NATIONS, 5 Nov 2012
UN General Assembly – TRANSCEND Media Service
Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948
Article 1
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means 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.
Article 3
The following acts shall be punishable:
- (a) Genocide;
- (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
- (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
- (d) Attempt to commit genocide;
- (e) Complicity in genocide.
Article 4
Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.
Article 5
The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3.
Article 6
Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.
Article 7
Genocide and the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition.
The Contracting Parties pledge themselves in such cases to grant extradition in accordance with their laws and treaties in force.
Article 8
Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3.
Article 9
Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.
Article 10
The present Convention, of which the Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall bear the date of 9 December 1948.
Article 11
The present Convention shall be open until 31 December 1949 for signature on behalf of any Member of the United Nations and of any non-member State to which an invitation to sign has been addressed by the General Assembly.
The present Convention shall be ratified, and the instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
After 1 January 1950, the present Convention may be acceded to on behalf of any Member of the United Nations and of any non-member State which has received an invitation as aforesaid.
Instruments of accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Article 12
Any Contracting Party may at any time, by notification addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, extend the application of the present Convention to all or any of the territories for the conduct of whose foreign relations that Contracting Party is responsible.
Article 13
On the day when the first twenty instruments of ratification or accession have been deposited, the Secretary-General shall draw up a proces-verbal and transmit a copy of it to each Member of the United Nations and to each of the non-member States contemplated in Article 11.
The present Convention shall come into force on the ninetieth day following the date of deposit of the twentieth instrument of ratification or accession.
Any ratification or accession effected subsequent to the latter date shall become effective on the ninetieth day following the deposit of the instrument of ratification or accession.
Article 14
The present Convention shall remain in effect for a period of ten years as from the date of its coming into force.
It shall thereafter remain in force for successive periods of five years for such Contracting Parties as have not denounced it at least six months before the expiration of the current period.
Denunciation shall be effected by a written notification addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Article 15
If, as a result of denunciations, the number of Parties to the present Convention should become less than sixteen, the Convention shall cease to be in force as from the date on which the last of these denunciations shall become effective.
Article 16
A request for the revision of the present Convention may be made at any time by any Contracting Party by means of a notification in writing addressed to the Secretary-General.
The General Assembly shall decide upon the steps, if any, to be taken in respect of such request.
Article 17
The Secretary-General of the United Nations shall notify all Members of the United Nations and the non-member States contemplated in Article 11 of the following:
- (a) Signatures, ratifications and accessions received in accordance with Article 11;
- (b) Notifications received in accordance with Article 12;
- (c) The date upon which the present Convention comes into force in accordance with Article 13;
- (d) Denunciations received in accordance with Article 14;
- (e) The abrogation of the Convention in accordance with Article 15;
- (f) Notifications received in accordance with Article 16.
Article 18
The original of the present Convention shall be deposited in the archives of the United Nations.
A certified copy of the Convention shall be transmitted to all Members of the United Nations and to the non-member States contemplated in Article 11.
Article 19
The present Convention shall be registered by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the date of its coming into force.
Created on August 16, 1994 / Last edited on January 27, 1997
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PART ONE:
“Only a national government has the power to produce “genocide,” which is the killing of an entire race of people. And only a government, when its troops invade other nations, can attempt to destroy an entire race outside of its borders. Neither an individual nor a group of individuals can commit genocide. And, if they try, they would quickly be jailed under already well-established criminal statutes. Thus we see that only nations can commit genocide, never individuals. Only a nation can blot out a race; an individual can only kill individuals.” (http://www.remnantofgod.org/breaking-news.htm )
No criminal norms stipulate that one should not kill a person or persons. All criminal norms stipulate that one who killed a person or persons is to be punished in a certain manner. Some jurists discuss that the former (= one should not kill a person or persons) is the first norm, while the latter (= one who killed a person or persons is to be punished in a certain manner) is the second norm and that the criminal (and other legal) norms express the second norm only. That is to say, it can be said that the legal norm is useful for the punishment, not necessarily for the prevention. While jurists discuss the deterrent effect of the legal (especially, criminal) norms, if the legal norms stipulate only the punishment, how much actually the norm has the effective deterrent effect to prevent the crime?
Non legal norms, such as the Ten Commandments, express only the first norm. The Commandments stipulate, for instance, “Do not kill.” The Commandments do not stipulate the punishment. What punishment will be imposed (by God) is unclear. The Commandment does not express the second norm. This is one of the main differences between legal norms and non-legal norms. How much actually the non-legal norm has the effective deterrent effect to prevent the crime? It has either no or poor deterrent effect but it appeals to the human conscience? If so, how much it has the actual effect to the human conscience?
PART TWO:
Imagine as follows: You were a soldier. Your commander ordered you and your colleagues to terminate a certain ethnic group. You and your colleagues implemented the order, meaning that you and your colleagues killed hundreds of thousands of people of that ethnic group. Later, the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted your commander, high ranking military officials and government officials. These indicted officials were punished by the ICC. (Note that the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) declares in the judgment on the Furundzija case that the prohibition of genocide constitutes a part of “jus cogens” (= peremptory norms).) For the Furundzija case, visit: http://www.icty.org/sid/7609 Up to this point, it is about a legal issue.
Now, think. From this point on, it is not about a legal issue. It is about a matter of your conscience. What does it mean? It means this: Even though those high ranking officials took their legal responsibility in the form of being punished, it was you and your colleagues who actually killed hundreds of thousands of people. You and your colleagues were not punished, because you and your colleagues just implemented the order. Therefore, you believe that you have no responsibility for the genocide. No legal responsibility. But what do you think of the fact that you killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people?
Would you say that the “legal” responsibility is the “only” form of responsibility so that you feel no guilty for your act of genocide? Would you say that you received the order that was to be implemented without question and that the defiance of the order was the subject to punishment? (But your superiors were punished because they issued such order to you and your colleagues.) Is it your conscience to implement the order of genocide? Would you say that the conscience of a soldier is superior to the conscience of a human so that you followed the former rather than the latter?
Think of genocide not only from the legal view point but also from your own human conscience and also from the spirit of brotherhood/sisterhood of humankind of this global village on our planet. In that regard, let me quote Oscar Wilde’s words as follows: “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.” Where there is love, there is no genocide. Legal punishment (after a genocide case is identified) is one thing, but the prevention of genocide requires love, not only legal measures. Love each other, brothers and sisters, all humanity.
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Thank you, Antonio, editor of the TMS, for posting this very important international treaty.