Stopping Genocide
Should the U.S. and U.N. take action in Sudan?
By Sarah Glazer

Ten years ago, nearly a million ethnic-minority Rwandans died in a government-planned massacre. Political leaders in the United States and the United Nations later admitted they should have intervened and vowed “Never again” — just as they vowed after the Holocaust. But as ethnic killings occurring today in western Sudan make tragically clear, genocide still flourishes. The Bush administration. . . .

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Should the U.S. support the International Criminal Court?

William Pace Convenor, Coalition for the International Criminal Court. Written for The CQ Researcher, August 2004	Marc Grossman Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. From remarks to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 6, 2002

The Genocide Treaty

The United States and 135 other nations have signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide since the United Nations General Assembly approved it on Dec. 9, 1948. The treaty recognizes that genocide “is contrary to the spirit and aims of the United Nations and condemned by the civilized world” and that “in order to liberate mankind from such an odious scourge, international cooperation is required. . . .”

Key treaty provisions:

• The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.

• In the present Convention, 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.

• The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention, and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide. . . .

• Persons charged with genocide [or attempted genocide or related crimes] . . . 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.

• 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. . . .