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The 'Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide' was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948 and came into effect in January 1951. It defines and outlaws genocide, as a result of campaigning by Raphael Lemkin who had coined the term some years earlier. All participating countries are required to prevent and punish actions of genocide in war and peacetime.. The total number of states who have ratified the convention is currently 137.
The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide as
The convention was passed in order to outlaw actions similar to the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II. Because the convention required the support of the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc, it excluded actions undertaken by those nations. As a result, the convention excludes from the definition of genocide the killing of members of a social class, members of a political or ideological group, and that of cultural killings.
The first time that the 1948 law was enforced occurred on September 2, 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 country that violated the Genocide convention was Serbia, found by the ICJ for not preventing the Srebrenica genocide at the Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro case in which the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina accused Serbia and Montenegro for committing genocide.

Contents

Ratification

Members

See Also

External links

Ratification

The United States became a state party to the convention in 1988, though only with the proviso that it was immune from prosecution for genocide without its consent. This proviso was also made by Bahrain, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Yemen, and Yugoslavia.
Prior to their ratification of the treaty, the United States Senate was treated to a speech in favor of this treaty every day that the Senate was in session between 1967 & 1986, by Senator William Proxmire.

Members

The nations who have ratified the Convention, as well as the dates when this was done is available from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.[1] here.

See Also

External links

★ Text of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide