Genocide Convention

Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.

— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 6[5]

Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III.

— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 8[5]

Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.

— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 9[5]

• Bahrain
• Bangladesh
• China
• India
• Malaysia (reservation opposed by Netherlands, United Kingdom)
• Morocco
• Myanmar
• Philippines (reservation opposed by Norway )
• Rwanda (reservation opposed by United Kingdom )
• Singapore (reservation opposed by Netherlands, United Kingdom)
• United Arab Emirates
• United States of America (reservation opposed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom )
• Venezuela
• Vietnam (reservation opposed by United Kingdom )
• Yemen (reservation opposed by United Kingdom )

Any Contracting Party may at any time, by notification addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, extend the application of the present Convention to all or any of the territories for the conduct of whose foreign relations that Contracting Party is responsible

— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 12[5]

Several countries opposed this article, considering that the convention should apply to Non-Self-Governing Territories:

• Albania
• Belarus
• Bulgaria
• Hungary
• Mongolia
• Myanmar
• Poland
• Romania
• Russian Federation
• Ukraine

The opposition of those countries were in turn opposed by:

• Australia
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Ecuador
• China
• Netherlands
• Sri Lanka
• United Kingdom

In 1988, following the campaign of chemical weapons attacks and mass killings of Kurdish persons in northern Iraq, legislation was proposed to the United States House of Representatives, in the, "Prevention of Genocide Act". The bill was defeated to allegations of "inappropriate terms" such as "genocide". Contemporary scholars and international organizations widely consider the Anfal Campaign to have been genocide following the Iran-Iraq war, killing tens of thousands of Kurds. Saddam Hussein was charged individual with genocide though executed prior to a return for the charge. Associates of Hussein such as "Chemical Ali", and others have been widely accused of genocide and the events widely cited as one of the atrocities most commonly associated with the Hussein regime.[10]

The first time that the 1948 law was enforced occurred on 2 September 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 state and parties to be found in breach of the Genocide convention was Serbia and Montenegro, and numerous Bosnian Serb leaders. In the Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro case the International Court of Justice presented its judgment on 26 February 2007. It cleared Serbia of direct involvement in genocide during the Bosnian war. International Tribunal findings, have addressed two allegations of genocidal events, including the 1992 Ethnic Cleansing Campaign in municipalities throughout Bosnia, as well as the convictions found in regards to the Srebrenica Massacre of 1995 in which the tribunal found, "Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide, they targeted for extinction, the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica ... the trial chamber refers to the crimes by their appropriate name, genocide ...". Individual convictions applicable to the 1992 Ethnic Cleansings have not been secured however. A number domestic courts and legislatures have found these events to have met the criteria of genocide, and the ICTY found the acts of, and intent to destroy to have been satisfied, the "Dolus Specialis" still in question and before the MICT, UN war crimes court.[11][12] but ruled that Belgrade did breach international law by failing to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, and for failing to try or transfer the persons accused of genocide to the ICTY, in order to comply with its obligations under Articles I and VI of the Genocide Convention, in particular in respect of General Ratko Mladić.[13][14]

One of the first accusations of genocide submitted to the UN after the Convention entered into force concerned treatment of Black Americans. The Civil Rights Congress drafted a 237-page petition arguing that even after 1945, the United States had been responsible for hundreds of wrongful deaths, both legal and extra-legal, as well as numerous other genocidal abuses. Leaders from the Black community, including William Patterson, Paul Robeson, and W. E. B. DuBois presented this petition to the UN in December 1951.[17] However, this accusation was a domestic political act by the Civil Rights Congress, without any reservations that a formal charge would be levied against the U.S.