Question, re: Genocide

[journalist3072]

I remember hearing or reading before (I forget exactly where) that normally, the international community is hesitant to call something "genocide" because then, it is supposed to automatically kick in certain actions or responses.

Can someone clarify this for me? Exactly what types of responses or actions are supposed to be taken after declaration of genocide? And under whose perview? The U.N.?

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

1. There's a UN convention called the 'Conventionon the Prevention

of Genocide' which was adopted by the General Assembly over fifty years ago. States who are signatories are compelled to act (both to prevent and to punish) when genocide is occurring in the terms laid down in the convention. There are about 130 countries who are signatories (the US didn't sign up until late in Reagan's 2nd term).

This site has a lot more (& will probably correct any errors of memory or fact I made):

http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/

[journalist3072]

2. Thank you! That's precisely what I was wondering.

Excellent information there! Thank you again.

I also wonder if anyone has brought up this point:

After Bush took office, he was given a report about the Clinton Administration's johnny-come-lately response to Rwanda.

And in the corner of one of the pages of the report, Bush wrote "not on my watch." Basically saying he would never let something like Rwanda happen on his watch.

And yet, here we are!

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. Merely signing the convention is irrelevant

I'm pretty sure we have not ratified (ie, the Senate as voted to accept it.) A ratified treaty is, under the Constitution, federal law. A treaty that has merely been signed, we may ignore at will.

[Ammonium]

5. We have

The United States ratified the treaty in 1988, 37 years after it was accepted by other international nations and the last of the 5 perminent members of the security councel.

[TechBear_Seattle]

6. You are right

I did a google search and found that we have, in fact, ratified it. My apologies; I figured that since we have refused to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (we are the only country to have signed but not ratified this) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Somalia is the only other country recognized by the United Nations not to have ratified this one), we had also refused to ratify the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. My bad.


You can find a whole page of international laws, conventions and treaties that fall within the purview of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/ It is quite eye-opening to browse through and see just how many of these conventions the United States has signed (meaning we have dipolmatically agreed with the contents) but ratified decades latter (meaning we have given the convention the force of law) or never ratified at all. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, for example, was proposed in December of 1966, entered in to force in March 76, was signed by the United States in October 1977 and ratified by the Senate in June, 1992. Note that Iraq signed in Feb. 69 and ratified in Jan. 71.

[Ammonium]

3. Genocide

In 1951 the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was put into effect following WW2. Under the treaty, all the signing nations are required to intervene and stop any genocide no matter where in the world. Under United States law, all international treaties are on par with the US constitution and carry the same weight. This is where the problem is. For example in Rwanda, the United States was reluctant to admit to the genocide that was taking place for a few reasons. 1) The incident in Samolia had scared the administration and because of the public backlash Clinton did not want to risk it again in Rwanda 2) What was there to gain in Rwanda? Though they do have large deposits of silicon(I think it's silicon?) required in cell phones and other electronics, they don't have oil. Therefore, there isn't a whole lot of return on the outside nations getting involved.

Under the CPPCG, any one of combination of, may be considered genocide.

(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.

Actions can range from economic sanctions to military action, all under the review of the UN security councel. The perpetrators of the genocide could then be transfered to the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands.