UN General Assembly
1949

66. Sir Carl Berendsen wished next to emphasize the importance of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They marked a very important step forward in man’s development, but there again Members should not deceive themselves. The drafting of conventions did not in itself effect anything; it merely pointed a way. The conventions would mean little or nothing in practice unless and until the nations of the world adopted them. Even then they might be largely ineffective unless they were implemented. It could scarcely be suggested, for example, that a people which could sink to such a depth of turpitude as to be guilty of genocide was likely to attach any meticulous importance to its pledged word on a convention. The mere signing of a convention did not necessarily lead to the elimination of the horror of genocide; it must be enforced. Human rights could not be preserved for all time merely because the nations declared that they should be enforced.