What is Genocide?
According to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide approved by the United Nations in 1948 and ratified by the United States in 1988:
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Countries, such as the United States, which are parties to the Convention, are obligated to "undertake to prevent and to punish" the crime of genocide. Despite several UN resolutions and the signing of a Darfur Peace Agreement in May 2006, the violence continues.
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Read the UNHCR Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm |
Learn about Responsibility to Protect Doctrine:
Read The Responsibility to Protect (http://www.iciss.ca/report-en.asp) report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. The goal of this study, commissioned in 2000 by the United Nations, is to reconcile the international community's responsibility to act in the face of massive violations of humanitarian norms with the responsibility to respect the sovereign rights of states poses a unique challenge.
"Responsibility to Protect" is a recently developed concept in international relations that provides a legal and ethical basis for humanitarian intervention in a state that is unwilling or unable to prevent or stop genocide, massive killings and other massive human rights violations.
