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Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948; it defines genocide and does not apply backward in time.

5 links, 4 backed by primary records

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Dates: 9 Dec 1948

Connections 5

adopted by

United Nations 9 Dec 1948 Primary record 1
Adopted by the General Assembly on 9 December 1948.

features

The scholarly debate over the word "genocide" Primary record 1 2 3
Dunbar-Ortiz dates U.S. ratification to 1988 and Lewy to 1986; both agree it is not retroactive in law, and both apply it to the past by analogy.

influenced

Whether the Holodomor was genocide Primary record 1 4 5
The European Parliament's resolution repeats the wording of Article II (c); the Russian State Duma speaks of the "internationally recognized characteristics of genocide".

influenced by

Deportations and killings of Ottoman Armenians, 1915 to 1916 Scholarship & press 6 7 8
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's account of where the word and the Convention came from.
Raphael Lemkin Primary record 6 9
As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum puts it; the Convention was the work of the United Nations General Assembly.

Timeline 2 dates

9 Dec 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
9 Dec 1948 United Nations adopted Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Proof 9 sources

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, United Nations, 9 Dec 1948. Primary record
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
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:
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Yes, Native Americans Were the Victims of Genocide, History News Network, via Portside, 12 May 2016. Scholarship & press
The convention is not retroactive but is applicable to US-Indigenous relations since 1988, when the US Senate ratified it.
Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?, History News Network, reprinting Commentary, 1 Sep 2004. Scholarship & press
after a long delay, it was ratified by the United States in 1986.
an atrocity like the Sand Creek massacre, limited to one group in a specific single locality, might also be considered an act of genocide.
Resolution on 90 years after the Holodomor: recognising the mass killing through starvation as genocide (summary of the text adopted), European Parliament, 15 Dec 2022. Primary record
as it was committed with the intent to destroy a group of people by deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction
Statement by the State Duma, 2 April 2008: In memory of the victims of the famine of the 1930s in the USSR (UN document A/62/813), Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, circulated by the United Nations, 2 Apr 2008. Primary record
The internationally recognized characteristics of genocide are not and cannot be ascribed to this tragedy, which should not be the subject of contemporary political speculation.
The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): In Depth, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Scholarship & press
The origin of the term genocide and its codification in international law have their roots in the mass murder of Armenians.
In 1948, in part due to the tireless efforts of Lemkin, the UN approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Open letter to Prime Minister Erdogan, International Association of Genocide Scholars, 13 June 2005, International Association of Genocide Scholars, 13 Jun 2005. Scholarship & press
Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, when he coined the term genocide in 1944, cited the Turkish extermination of the Armenians and the Nazi extermination of the Jews as defining examples of what he meant by genocide.
The Armenian Genocide Resolution Unanimously Passed by the Association of Genocide Scholars of North America, 13 June 1997, International Association of Genocide Scholars, 13 Jun 1997. Scholarship & press
reaffirms that the mass murder of over a million Armenians in Turkey in 1915 is a case of genocide which conforms to the statutes of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, 9 Dec 1948. Primary record
Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948.

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