The Convention for the prevention and the repression of the crime of genocide is a treaty of international law unanimously approved on December 9th, 1948 by the General meeting of the the United Nations. She is coming into effect on January 12th, 1951. Its inspirer and principal writer are Raphael Lemkin, a American Juriste of Jewish origin Polish, which created the Néologisme Génocide in the last years of the Second world war.

The Convention is composed of a prolog and nineteen articles.

In the prolog , the contracting parties declare that the genocide is a Crime against the Law of nations, that he contravenes the spirit and the objectives of the United Nations, which struck humanity from time immemorial, and whom the international cooperation is essential “to release the humanity of such an odious plague”.

The articles define the various aspects which the crime of genocide can take and establish measurements to judge those which would have been made guilty from there.

To circumscribe

Convention defines precisely in what corresponds the crime of genocide in its article 2:

In present Convention, the genocide means any of the acts, made hereafter in the intention to destroy, or all or partly, a group Nation Al, ethnic, racial or religious, like such:

a) Murder members of the group;

b) Gravely hurt with the physical integrity or mental members of the group;

c) Intentional tender of the group in conditions of existence having to involve its total or partial physical destruction;

d) Measurements aiming at blocking the births within the group;

e) Transfer forced children of the group to another group.

To punish

Strong of the report expressed in the prolog, the contracting parties begin to prevent and punish the genocide, that it is made in times of peace or time of war (Article 1) and to adapt their national legislation so that U.N. convention is really applied (Article 5). That in particular includes to envisage penal sanctions against those which would have organized, encouraged or taken part in a genocide (Article 3) - it does not matter that they acted with their personal initiative or as a representative of an authority (Article 4). The courts of competent jurisdiction can be national or international, and the defendants will not be able to prevail themselves of the Right of asylum political to escape the Extradition if necessary (Article 6 and 7).

To organize the international cooperation

In the event of divergent interpretations on the form or the bottom of Convention, between contracting parties, only the the International Court of Justice is entitled to slice (Article 9).

The other articles aim at settling questions of procedure related on the ratification and the coming into effect of Convention. This one is fixed at the 90e day following the deposit of the twentieth instrument of ratification or adhesion (Article 13).

Convention for the prevention and the repression of the crime of genocide was supplemented then by various texts. Thus, on November 26th, 1968, the General meeting of the United Nations adopted a Convention confirming the imprescriptibility of the war crimes and the crimes against the humanity which covers inter alia the crime of genocide (Article 1b); this treaty came into effect on November 11th, 1970.