Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide

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Convention of December 9, 1948 on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide
Short title: UN Genocide Convention (not official)
Title (engl.): Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide / short title: Genocide Convention (not official)
Date: December 9, 1948
Come into effect: January 12, 1951
Reference: UN Doc. A / RES / 3/260 (1948)
Reference (German): BGBl. 1954 II p. 729
BGBl. No. 91/1958
SR 0.311.11
Contract type: Multinational
Legal matter: International law , international criminal law
Signing: 41
Ratification : 147

Germany: Entry into force February 22, 1955
Liechtenstein: Entry into force June 22, 1994
Austria: Entry into force June 17, 1958
Switzerland: Comes into force December 6, 2000
Please note the note on the applicable contract version .

States that have the Genocide Convention
  • signed and ratified have
  • or joined it

    • The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (also the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide ; officially Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, CPPCG ) was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations as Resolution 260 A (III) on Decided on December 9, 1948. It came into force on January 12, 1951 and has so far been ratified by 147 states (as of December 2015). In Article II of the Convention, the term genocide was first defined in an international treaty . Since then, the provisions of the Genocide Convention have largely acquired the status of customary international law . The prohibition of genocide is now a mandatory rule of international law ( ius cogens ).

    The Federal Republic of Germany declared its accession on August 9, 1954. The German Democratic Republic followed on March 27, 1973 (with reservations, like all Eastern Bloc countries ).

    History of origin

    Raphael Lemkin: The Origin of the Term "Genocide"

    The text of the convention was largely formulated by Raphael Lemkin , who coined the term genocide in 1944 under the impression of the annihilation of the Armenians (1915–1916) and the annihilation of the Jews (1941–1945).

    content

    Article I of the Convention confirms the character of genocide as a crime under international law and establishes the obligation of the contracting parties to prevent and punish it.

    Article II defines genocide. Genocide is hereafter

    any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such:

    a) killing members of the group;
    b) causing serious physical or mental harm to members of the group;
    c) Deliberate imposition of living conditions on the group that are capable of bringing about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
    d) Imposing measures aimed at preventing births within the group;
    e) Forcible transfer of children from the group to another group.

    According to Article III of the Convention, the following acts are punishable:

    a) genocide,
    b) conspiracy to commit genocide,
    c) direct and public incentive to commit genocide,
    d) attempting to commit genocide,
    e) Participation in genocide

    International criminal justice

    The Convention's definition of genocide has been adopted word for word in the statutes of international criminal courts . With the Akayesu judgment passed on September 2, 1998 in connection with the genocide in Rwanda , the criminal offense was first applied in practice. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Jean Paul Akayesu guilty of nine of 15 counts and sentenced him to life imprisonment for genocide. Two days later, Jean Kambanda was the first head of state to be convicted of genocide - also to life imprisonment.

    The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted several people of genocide in connection with the Srebrenica massacre . Since 2005, the former Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir has been investigated before the International Criminal Court on suspicion of genocide in the course of the Darfur conflict .

    Domestic implementation

    In order to implement the criminalization and prosecution obligations under the Convention, a large number of states have created corresponding offenses in their national criminal laws. In some cases, the national laws go beyond the definition under international law. In Germany , genocide was first added to Section 220a of the Criminal Code . Since the introduction of the International Criminal Code , the criminal offense has been standardized in Section 6 of the VStGB. Incitement to genocide is punishable as sedition under Section 130 . Austria criminalizes genocide in its national law in accordance with Section 321 of the Austrian Criminal Code . In Switzerland, genocide is regulated in Art. 264 of the Criminal Code . Going beyond the Genocide Convention, “political groups” are also included in the offense.

    literature

    • Christian J. Tams, Lars Berster, Björn Schiffbauer: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: A Commentary . CH Beck, Munich 2014.
    • John Quigley: The Genocide Convention: an international law analysis . Ashgate, Aldershot 2006.

    Web links

    Wikisource: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide  - Sources and full texts

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/cppcg/cppcg.html Introduction to the UN Genocide Convention
    2. ^ Status of signature
    3. ^ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. (PDF) Certified copy of the contract. In: United Nations Treaty Series. Published by: UN Treaty Collection , p. 277 , accessed on March 27, 2019 .
    4. ↑ quoted in BGBl. 1954 II p. 730 or Federal Law Gazette
    5. ↑ See Article 4 Paragraph 2 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia, Article 2 Paragraph 2 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court for Rwanda, Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court .
    6. ↑ International Criminal Court, Case ICC-02/05 , accessed March 13, 2019.