William Schabas

The Genocide Convention at Fifty

Briefly...

On September 2, 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda issued its

first conviction for genocide, condemning a Rwandan mayor, Jean-Paul Akayesu, for

directing and inciting local mobs to the rape and murder of innocent Tutsi victims.

The tribunal’s companion, which deals with war crimes committed in the former

Yugoslavia, is currently proceeding with its first indictment for genocide. In October 1998, a Spanish prosecutor sought the extradition of General Augusto Pinochet

for charges of genocide. And Bosnia has challenged the International Court of

Justice to construe the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime

of Genocide in a pending case it has filed against Belgrade. Ethnic conflict and

atrocities committed within civil wars have thrust genocide to center stage.

Genocide is defined in the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the

Crime of Genocide, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly fifty years ago, on December 9, 1948. For a time, it was the forgotten convention, drafted in the aftermath of the Holocaust but then relegated to obscurity as the human rights movement focused on more “modern” atrocities: apartheid, torture, disappearances. Events

in Rwanda and Bosnia have rehabilitated the Convention, whose application and

interpretation have become matters for urgent attention.

In the half-century since the convention’s adoption, many of the difficult questions concerning genocide have remained unanswered. What groups are protected

by the convention? Does it cover political, social and gender groups, as well as

racial and ethnic groups? And just how are racial and ethnic groups defined, according to the precise legal requirements of criminal prosecutions? What are states

required to do when genocide offenders are found on their territory? Does the

obligation to prevent genocide include a duty to intervene, even militarily, if the

crime is being committed?

“The Crime Without a Name”

The destruction of ethnic groups has marred the progress of human history

almost from its beginnings. There are reports of genocide-like massacres in the

writings of the ancient Greeks and in the history of the Middle Ages. Indigenous

populations in the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and elsewhere were sometimes slated

for elimination by their “discovers” or their colonizers. But ethnic massacre truly

seems to have flourished in the twentieth century. The first great genocide of the

era dates to the First World War when hundreds of thousands of Armenians were

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

SPECIAL REPORT

1200 17th Street NW, Suite 200 • Washington, DC 20036-3011 • VOX 202.457.1700 • FAX 202.429.6063

CONTENTS

1 “The Crime Without a Name”

2 What is “Genocide”?

4 Is Ethnic Cleansing a Form of Genocide?

4 Criminal Prosecution of Genocide

6 Prevention of Genocide: The

Convention’s Great Failure

7 Recommendations

8 Other Resources

www.usip.org

ABOUT THE REPORT

The Genocide Convention was the first

modern human rights treaty. It was adopted

only one day earlier than the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, which set the

common standard of achievement for human

civilization. This report—released in

commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of

the adoption of the Convention for the

Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of

Genocide (December 9, 1948)—was authored

by Prof. William Schabas, a senior fellow at

the U. S. Institute of Peace. This report is the

result of Schabas’ work on his fellowship

project,”The Law of Genocide,” assessing

major issues confronting the convention in

the twenty-first century.

William Schabas is professor of law at the

University of Quebec at Montreal, where he

specializes in international human rights law,

international criminal law, and minority rights.

He serves as an assessor with the Quebec

Human Rights Tribunal and has participated in

humanitarian fact-finding missions to Rwanda,

Burundi, Sudan, South Africa, and Guyana on

behalf of several international nongovernmental organizations.

This report was prepared with the

assistance of program officer John T. Crist.

The views expressed in this report do

not necessarily reflect those of the United

States Institute of Peace, which does not

advocate specific policies.

January 7, 1999
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The Genocide Convention at Fifty — United States Institute of Peace Special Report, January 7, 1999

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

The United States Institute of Peace is an

independent, nonpartisan federal institution

created by Congress to promote research,

education, and training on the peaceful

resolution of international conflicts.

Established in 1984, the Institute meets its

congressional mandate through an array of

programs, including research grants,

fellowships, professional training programs,

conferences and workshops, library services,

publications, and other educational activities.

The Institute’s Board of Directors is appointed

by the President of the United States and

confirmed by the Senate.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chester A. Crocker (Chairman), Research Professor

of Diplomacy, School of Foreign Service,

Georgetown University • Max M. Kampelman, Esq.

(Vice Chairman), Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and

Jacobson, Washington, D.C. • Dennis L. Bark,

Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution on War,

Revolution and Peace, Stanford University •

Theodore M. Hesburgh, President Emeritus,

University of Notre Dame • Seymour Martin

Lipset, Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George

Mason University • W. Scott Thompson, Professor

of International Politics, Fletcher School of Law

and Diplomacy, Tufts University • Allen Weinstein,

President, Center for Democracy, Washington, D.C.

• Harriet Zimmerman, Vice President, American

Israel Public Affairs Committee, Washington, D.C.

MEMBERS EX OFFICIO: Ralph Earle II, Deputy

Director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament

Agency • Phyllis Oakley, Assistant Secretary of

State for Intelligence and Research • Daniel H.

Simpson, Vice President, National Defense

University • Walter B. Slocombe, Under Secretary

of Defense for Policy • Richard H. Solomon,

President, U.S. Institute of Peace (nonvoting)

destroyed despite the protests of Western diplomats who, possibly for the first

time, called such killings a “crime against humanity.” In the Second World War,

after nearly a decade of mounting anti-Semitism, Hitler undertook what he called

the “final solution,” reminding his generals that “nobody remembers the Armenians.”

Churchill called it “the crime without a name,” and it was only in 1944 that a

Jewish refugee from Poland teaching in the United States, Raphael Lemkin, coined

the term genocide in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Lemkin’s neologism was

rapidly accepted. In 1945, the Nuremberg prosecutors charged genocide in the

indictment of Goering, Hess and the others, although the judges of the International Military Tribunal kept with the official terminology used in their statute and

described the Nazi atrocities as “crimes against humanity.” After the Nuremberg

judgment, the U.N. General Assembly declared genocide an international crime and

directed that a treaty aimed at its prevention and punishment be drafted.

By contemporary standards, the work of preparing the legal instrument went

rather quickly. The final text of the convention was adopted at the 1948 General

Assembly, held in Paris at the Palais de Chaillot. Within a few years it had been

ratified by more than one-third of the United Nations membership, enough for it to

enter into force. As of 1998, it has been ratified by two-thirds of the member states,

a relatively paltry number when compared with the number that have ratified the

major human rights treaties. Africa, in particular, stands out for its low rate of

acceptance. The United States signed on only ten years ago, after decades of sporadic and sometimes protracted debates.

As its title suggests, the Genocide Convention is concerned with both prevention and punishment. It is the second prong of its mission—punishment—that has

received the most attention. The convention itself provides a detailed definition of

the crime of genocide, declares that there can be no defence of sovereign immunity,

requires states to adopt appropriate legislation so that genocide will be punished

by their own courts, and obliges them to extradite genocide suspects. What the

convention means by preventing genocide remains enigmatic, but defining it is an

urgent priority, given the recent failure to stop genocide in Rwanda.

What is “Genocide”?

Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as “a coordinated plan of different actions

aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups,

with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” He said that the objective of

such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national

groups and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and

even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. For Lemkin, “[g]enocide

is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are

directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the

national group.”

But it is easier for an academic to draft a definition than for a United Nations

committee to do so, even at a time when there were only fifty-eight member states.

For nearly two years the delegates quarreled, finally agreeing that genocide consisted of killing, serious assault, starvation, and measures aimed at children “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or

religious group, as such.” The definition has stood the test of time, despite arguments that it omits political and social groups and fails to contemplate persecution

based on gender. At least on an international level, the 1948 convention’s defini-
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The Genocide Convention at Fifty — United States Institute of Peace Special Report, January 7, 1999

tion has become a kind of international law boilerplate, appearing in the statutes of

the ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, and in the recently

adopted text of the International Criminal Court.

National lawmakers have felt less constrained by the strict terms of the international instrument, and domestic laws aimed at giving effect to the convention

often provide a broader scope for the term, encompassing political groups or for

that matter any group with a degree of permanence. In October 1998, some observers were surprised when a Spanish prosecutor charged Chile’s Augusto Pinochet

with genocide for crimes committed during the 1970s. Certainly the case seems

difficult to make under the convention definition, because the victims were Chilean

political activists, not an identifiable ethnic group. But Spain has opted for a

broader definition than the one that is internationally recognized, one that comprises political and other groups. Ethiopian law is similar in this respect, and trials

have been under way for several years against members of the former Derg regime

who are charged with genocide.

In its groundbreaking decision of September 2, 1998, the International Criminal

Tribunal for Rwanda was vexed by the problem of classifying Rwanda’s Tutsis as a

race or an ethnic group. Ultimately, it concluded that the convention definition is

meant to protect all “stable” groups, “constituted in a permanent fashion and

membership of which is determined by birth, with the exclusion of the more ‘mobile’ groups which one joins through individual voluntary commitment, such as

political and economic groups.” But even this definition is unsatisfactory, because

a person’s membership in religious and national groups may certainly change over

a lifetime, and new groups may come into existence.

At the heart of the definition, it would seem, is the fact that it is the perpetrator

who has defined or identified the group for destruction. It was Hitler’s view of

Jewishness that prevailed at Auschwitz, not some neutral rule or one adopted by

the victims themselves. In other words, the test is subjective, not objective. Similarly, in Rwanda, the Belgian colonizers had defined ethnic Tutsis as those possessing a certain number of cattle. The determinations were made sixty or seventy years

ago, then inscribed on identity cards, and passed from parents to children according to customary rules. In 1994, individuals were Tutsis if the Interahamwe militia

said they were. Surely an individual who sought to destroy the “Negroid” or “Mongoloid” race or part of it would be committing genocide under the terms of the

convention, even though modern science disputes the validity of such designations

from an objective standpoint.

The convention definition specifies that genocide must aim at the destruction of

the group “in whole or in part.” Obviously, there is a quantitative threshold. The

term “genocide” would be trivialized if it were extended to cover isolated hate

crimes and racially motivated violence. In 1982, the General Assembly denounced

the massacres of hundreds at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla as

genocide. But there was significant, vocal opposition, and there can be no doubt

that the term was stretched in order to wound Israel’s Jewish population, the

crime’s great historic victims, by suggesting that they had become its perpetrators.

The quantitative test is more than a mere numbers game. Because genocide is a

crime of intent, the real question is what is the purpose of the offender, not what is

the result. Even if only a few are killed or injured, the crime is genocide if the intent

is to destroy the group “in whole or in part.” Where there are large numbers of

victims, such an intent is relatively easy to prove and is little more than a logical

deduction from the facts. Where the numbers are low, some other elements will be

necessary, such as evidence of genocidal speeches and declarations, destruction of

cultural and religious symbols accompanying acts of violence, and so on.

For nearly two years the

delegates quarreled, finally

agreeing that genocide consisted

of killing, serious assault,

starvation, and measures aimed

at children “committed with

intent to destroy, in whole or in

part, a national, ethnical, racial

or religious group, as such.”
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The Genocide Convention at Fifty — United States Institute of Peace Special Report, January 7, 1999

Is Ethnic Cleansing a Form of Genocide?

The term “ethnic cleansing” entered the international vocabulary in 1992 with

the war in the former Yugoslavia. It lacks the precise legal definition genocide has,

although it has been widely used in General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, documents of special rapporteurs, and the pamphlets of nongovernmental

organizations. Some suggest that it is merely a euphemism for the more scientific

term, genocide. Yet when the convention was being drafted in 1948, there was a

proposal to include “[i]mposing measures intended to oblige members of a group to

abandon their homes in order to escape the threat of subsequent ill-treatment” as

a formal act of genocide. The delegates felt this proposal was too remote from the

goals of the convention, and that such behavior might better be addressed as an

issue of the human rights of minority groups.

There would seem to be a significant difference between ethnic cleansing and

genocide. The former seeks to “cleanse” or “purify” a territory of one ethnic group

by use of terror, rape, and murder in order to convince the inhabitants to leave. The

latter seeks to destroy the group, closing the borders to ensure that none escape.

This observation should not be taken to imply that ethnic cleansing is not a barbaric international crime. It is most certainly punishable as a crime against humanity. In fact, genocide is itself a subcategory of the more general term, crimes against

humanity.

Why is the definition of genocide so important? Precisely because there is a

convention. Bosnia has sued the former Yugoslavia before the International Court

of Justice for breach of the Genocide Convention. It must show that the brutal

ethnic cleansing carried out during the war amounted to genocide, or else the case

will be dismissed. Modest and ambiguous as convention obligations may be, more

than 120 states have accepted them, something they have refused to do, to date,

in the case of the more broadly defined concept of crimes against humanity. Only

since July 1998 can we speak of a treaty that includes comparable obligations with

respect to crimes against humanity—the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. But as yet, no states have ratified the statute, and it will surely not come

into force for several years.

Criminal Prosecution of Genocide

The core of the Genocide Convention is the provisions dealing with obligations

to punish the crime. The convention requires states to enact offences of genocide

in their domestic criminal codes and to ensure that it is effectively punished. Although international law now rules out the death penalty, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has concluded that the severe penalty of life imprisonment

is appropriate, even when there are compelling mitigating factors. The convention

also excludes any defence based on official capacity, reaffirming a principle recognized at Nuremberg. Rulers and heads of state are liable for prosecution. They

cannot rely on archaic claims of sovereign immunity. Indeed, as history has shown,

the very nature of the crime implies the complicity of the state, of its organs and its

representatives. And this fact begs the difficult question of who will try the perpetrators of genocide. If a country’s rulers are behind the crime, can its courts seriously be expected to hand out justice? Where those responsible for genocide have

been vanquished—Germany in 1945 or Rwanda in 1994—there may be modest

hope of progress with prosecution. Where they have prevailed, impunity would

seem to be the order of the day.

Because genocide is a crime of

intent, the real question is what

is the purpose of the offender,

not what is the result. Even if

only a few are killed or injured,

the crime is genocide if the

intent is to destroy the group

“in whole or in part.”

At the heart of the definition, it

would seem, is the fact that it

is the perpetrator who has

defined or identified the group

for destruction. It was Hitler’s

view of Jewishness that

prevailed at Auschwitz....In

1994, individuals were Tutsis if

the Interahamwe militia said

they were.
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The Genocide Convention at Fifty — United States Institute of Peace Special Report, January 7, 1999

But those who drafted the convention in 1948 were awed at the prospect of

creating an international system of criminal justice. The Cold War was beginning,

and there were fears that an international court would inevitably lead to abuse,

becoming a forum for politically motivated settling of scores between superpowers.

Thus, the convention says that genocide will be tried either before the courts of the

territory where the crime took place or by an international criminal court that was

at the time little more than wishful thinking and that was not created, in a partial

and incomplete form, until forty-five years after the convention’s adoption.

In 1961, Israel’s courts dismissed Adolph Eichmann’s argument, based on these

jurisdictional provisions of the convention, that he could be tried only in Europe.

Eichmann reminded them that the 1948 convention said genocide was to be prosecuted by courts of the territory where the crime took place. The District Court of

Jerusalem held that despite the terms of the convention, customary law entitled

tribunals throughout the world to try those responsible for such a heinous crime.

This is the principle of universal jurisdiction. But examples of successful application

of universal jurisdiction are few—the Eichmann case remains the best example—

and unless states have some special interest in prosecution, as was the case with

Israel, they are loathe to involve themselves in crimes committed halfway around

the world, no matter how horrible and tragic. The United States learned this lesson

in March and April 1998, when it sought, unsuccessfully, to find a domestic justice

system willing to try Pol Pot for crimes committed in Cambodia during the 1970s.

Overtures were politely declined by Canada, Spain, and Israel, all of whose laws

would technically have allowed them to bring Pol Pot to justice.

Hence the enduring interest in an international court. Although the Genocide

Convention contemplated this as an alternative to the courts of the territorial

state, there was only sporadic progress toward the creation of an international

criminal court until the end of the Cold War. In May 1993, the first of the ad hoc

tribunals was established by the Security Council, to address crimes in the former

Yugoslavia. It was given jurisdiction to deal with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Eighteen months later, the Rwanda tribunal was created and

given essentially the same mandate. Prosecutor Louise Arbour has been extremely

prudent in charging genocide before the Yugoslav tribunal, although the offence is

set out in a few of the indictments, notably those of Karadzic and Mladic. The two

remain at large, owing to a lack of political will that seems to characterize international enforcement of the law of genocide. Before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the case for the crime of genocide is far more evident. Essentially all

of the suspects are charged with genocide. There have already been two convictions, of former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda and of a local mayor, Jean-Paul

Akayesu, and more should follow soon.

But the genuine and universal international criminal court promised by the 1948

convention was only created fifty years later, at the Rome Diplomatic Conference of

June–July 1998. During the drafting of the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court, the crime of genocide was the single offence on which there was virtually

no serious argument; crimes against humanity and war crimes, particularly when

committed in internal conflicts, proved to be more problematic. Sometime early in

the next decade, it is to be hoped, when sixty states have ratified the Rome Statute,

the court will begin to function. It is intriguing to note that had the 1948 convention actually created an international genocide court, instead of merely promising

one, that tribunal would have exercised jurisdiction over Cambodia, Yugoslavia,

Rwanda, and Congo, all of which were parties to the convention when their own

There would seem to be a

significant difference between

ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The former seeks to “cleanse” or

“purify” a territory of one

ethnic group by use of terror,

rape, and murder in order to

convince the inhabitants to

leave. The latter seeks to

destroy the group...
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The Genocide Convention at Fifty — United States Institute of Peace Special Report, January 7, 1999

particular waves of atrocities took place. This fact ought to be considered by those

who claim that the court is doomed to impotence because those states most likely

to harbor criminals are unlikely to ratify the statute.

Prevention of Genocide: The Convention’s Great Failure

It cannot be gainsaid that there is now an international commitment to punish

those responsible for what the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda recently

called “the crime of crimes.” Where the convention continues to fail is in its task of

preventing genocide. Although the duty is set out in the convention, opinions

differ about just how far it may extend. Put bluntly, are states required, as a legal

obligation, to take action up to and including military intervention in order to

prevent the crime from occurring?

In April and May 1994, as massacres of Rwandan Tutsis took place, the U.N.

Security Council hesitated to use the “g word”. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then secretary-general, said that this hesitation was out of fear that if the council agreed that

genocide was taking place, it would have no alternative but to intervene militarily.

In his speech at Rwanda’s Kigali airport, on March 25, 1998, President Clinton

apologized for the tragic and unpardonable failure of the international community

to react: “We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide.” He stopped short, but not far short, of saying that the international community should have taken effective action.

Prompt intervention in 1994 would have prevented genocide. That there were

United Nations peacekeeping forces on the ground in Rwanda when the genocide

took place, and that they failed to take effective action against the massacres, is a

disgraceful blemish on the international community as a whole. Canadian General

Romeo Dallaire, who commanded the peacekeepeers in Kigali at the time, has often

said that with a force of 5,000 and an appropriate mandate, the massacres could

have been stopped. Dallaire is now on indefinite sick leave from the Canadian

forces, wrestling with his own personal demons from a genocide that he foretold

but seemed helpless to prevent. As the genocide raged, Dallaire eventually told the

Security Council that if an aggressive mandate was not forthcoming, then it would

be better to withdraw. And that was the shameful course taken by the Security

Council. The United States was unwilling to commit troops, and without its support, nothing could take place, at least in the short term. By June 1994, the council

authorized an ambiguous French military presence in southwest Rwanda that was

couched in humanitarian terms but had the effect of facilitating the retreat of

those responsible for the crimes.

In August 1998, the Rwandan foreign minister, Athanase Gasana, claimed his

country’s armed forces would intervene in Congo in order to prevent genocide directed against the Tutsi minority and instigated by erstwhile ally Laurent Kabila.

Surely any right to intervene unilaterally is subject to the United Nations Charter

and requires Security Council approval. But who wanted to be the one to tell the

Rwandans that they had to wait, again, while the matter was considered by a body

that still was not sure that it was required to act?

That the Security Council is entitled to intervene, or to authorize intervention,

in order to prevent persecution of ethnic minorities cannot, since the end of the

Cold War, be seriously questioned. Here the starting point is Resolution 688, authorizing the use of force against Iraq in order to protect the Kurdish minority from

atrocities.

As history has shown, the very

nature of the crime implies the

complicity of the state ...this

fact begs the difficult question

of who will try the perpetrators

of genocide.

...examples of successful

application of universal

jurisdiction are few....Hence the

enduring interest in an

international court.
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The Genocide Convention at Fifty — United States Institute of Peace Special Report, January 7, 1999

But the issue is not whether the international community may intervene but

rather whether it must intervene when a group protected by the Genocide Convention is threatened with extermination. If Boutros-Ghali was right, then such an

obligation exists. Indeed, the reluctance of the Security Council to use the term

suggests that its members shared this view. If President Clinton’s belated apology in

Kigali means anything, surely it must imply that there will be prompt action to

prevent a future genocide.

The doctrine of humanitarian intervention has suffered from its uneven application. Invoked with enthusiasm in Iraq and Somalia, it was brushed aside as genocide

raged in Rwanda. Certainly, the idea that humanitarian intervention is a duty under

all circumstances is a radical concept unlikely to gain any serious acceptance at this

time. But the same concerns should be less significant in the case of genocide,

given the narrowness and precision of its definition.

Recommendations

The law and politics of genocide stagnated for several decades following the

adoption of the convention in 1948. The thinking and writing about its scope since

1948 have been meagre and sometimes superficial, with a few notable exceptions.

When the horrors of ethnic conflict became the scourge of the last decade of the

millennium, the convention was, so to speak, hauled off the shelf and dusted off.

Unlike other human rights treaties, there has been no “treaty body” or committee

charged with ensuring the Genocide Convention’s implementation and helping to

define its content. The convention most certainly suffered from the absence of a

monitoring organ similar to those that exist in the case of civil and political rights,

women’s rights, torture, and other important issues on the human rights agenda. A

recent suggestion that this weakness be corrected was made by the United Nations

Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities but has not been taken up by bodies in a position to implement such a measure.

A Committee on Genocide would be the logical forum to provoke debate on and

ultimately spell out the details of the obligation to prevent genocide. But even

recommendations from such a treaty body would not bind states. What is really

required is a formal recognition of the duty to intervene to prevent genocide. It

could take a variety of forms, such as a resolution of the General Assembly or

statements within the Security Council. Whatever the vehicle, if the message is clear

it will be taken as authoritative interpretation of the convention’s obligation to

prevent genocide, and perhaps even a manifestation of customary law, binding on

the 60-odd states that have yet to ratify the convention as well as on the 125 that

have accepted its terms.

Other duties, too, remain vague and require clarification. For example, the convention says states must cooperate in the extradition of genocide suspects “in

accordance with their laws and treaties in force.” This statement falls far short of a

firm requirement that they ensure offenders be brought to justice. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 go much further in dealing with war crimes, obliging states to

investigate and then either try or extradite, so that no suspect goes untried.

Another matter is the prohibition of incitement to genocide, a difficult issue

because it butts up against the need to ensure freedom of expression. In Rwanda, a

contribution to the prevention of genocide might have been made by jamming the

waves of Radio Mille Collines, which was responsible for promoting so much ethnic

hatred. The Rwandan experience mandates some action to prevent hate speech that

constitutes incitement to genocide. Besides the Genocide Convention, major international human rights instruments, including the Covenant on Civil and Political

Prompt intervention in 1994

would have prevented genocide.

That there were United Nations

peacekeeping forces on the

ground in Rwanda when the

genocide took place, and that

they failed to take effective

action against the massacres, is

a disgraceful blemish on the

international community as a

whole.
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The Genocide Convention at Fifty — United States Institute of Peace Special Report, January 7, 1999

Rights and the International Convention for the Prevention of All Forms of Racial

Discrimination, require the interdiction of racist propaganda. Both have been ratified by the United States, but with reservations on the hate speech provisions,

inspired by concerns that ratifying them might conflict with constitutional principles of freedom of expression. Out of similar preoccupations, legislation adopted

in European countries has met with an uneven reaction in bodies such as the

European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Committee. Thus, the application of this important obligation to prevent incitement to genocide remains muddied by divergent practice and confused jurisprudence.

The Genocide Convention was the first modern human rights treaty. It was adopted

only one day earlier than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which set the

common standard of achievement for human civilization. Some must have believed,

in 1948, that the unthinkable crime of genocide would never recur. Perhaps the

gaps in the convention are only the oversights of optimistic negotiators, mistaken

in the belief that they were erecting a monument to the past rather than a weapon

to police the future. Their naiveté may be forgiven. A failure to learn the lessons of

the fifty years since its adoption cannot.

Other Resources

The full text of the genocide convention can be found on the Internet at:

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm.

More internet resources relating to the convention can be found through the

Institute’s Jeanette Rankin library program at: http://www.usip.org/library/topics/

genocide.html

If President Clinton’s belated

apology in Kigali means

anything, surely it must imply

that there will be prompt action

to prevent a future genocide.

RELATED PROJECTS AT THE INSTITUTE

Schabas’ work complements a number of

ongoing Institute projects about the

relationship between conflict resolution, the

reduction of political violence, and human

rights concerns. The Institute’s Rule of Law

program has for many years examined the use

of legal mechanisms for inducing compliance

with international human rights norms,

including those concerning genocide, and for

ensuring just and fair resolutions to conflict in

divided societies. The Religion, Ethics, and

Human Rights initiative has focused

extensively on the effects of human rights

provisions that guarantee religious freedom

and equal protection on the reduction of

violence in ethnoreligious conflicts. Finally,

the Research and Studies program recently

established a new initiative on Human Rights

Implementation, which will assess and analyze

the effectiveness of human rights policies in

order to suggest strategies for enhancing their

implementation.