A Conventional Approach

On the eve of a new UN General Assembly it may be helpful to look back on the history of one of the body's most substantial contributions to international law.

The idea of an international treaty prohibiting genocide was first broached by Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer who created the term "genocide." In a pamphlet published in 1946 Lemkin proposed that individuals who committed acts of genocide would be prosecuted by the country where the crime was committed. Additionally, he suggested that a special tribunal be set up to try any government or organization leaders who participated in genocide.

The UN General Assembly, recognizing the need to address the crime of genocide, adopted Resolution 96(I) on December 11, 1946. The resolution acknowledged genocide as a crime under international law and requested that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) begin preparations for a draft convention on the prevention and punishment of genocide. In the spring of 1947 Secretary-General Trygve Lie presented ECOSOC's draft convention to three experts, Donnedeiu de Vabres of France, Vespasien Pella of Romania, and Lemkin, for comments and amendments. The three experts finished their work in May 1947 and produced what is referred to as the Secretariat Draft. This draft has several notable differences from the convention we know today: linguistic and political groups were included in the definition of genocide, acts of cultural genocide were included, such as prohibiting use of a national language or destroying cultural monuments, and most controversially there was a section criminalizing preparatory acts, such as "studies and research for the purpose of developing the technique of genocide." The Secretariat Draft also included an article that granted reparations to survivors of genocide as well as annexes that established an international criminal court.

It should be pointed out that the Genocide Convention was in fact the very first human rights treaty drafted by the UN. And with all new endeavors there was some discussion as to future steps. One group wanted to submit the draft to a committee on codification of international law, another group wanted the draft to be resubmitted to ECOSOC, and a third group lead by the USSR demanded that the draft be submitted directly to member states for comments.

After considerable debate among UN members a compromise was reached-the draft and corresponding comments from governments were to be presented to an Ad Hoc Committee consisting of representatives from the United States, the USSR, Lebanon, China, France, Poland and Venezuela. The Committee met between April and May 1948 and reworked the draft. The Ad Hoc Draft retained some features of the Secretariat Draft, such as defining cultural genocide and keeping political groups in the definition of genocide, but it also removed some features such as the paragraph of preparatory acts.

Once the Ad Hoc Committee completed its work it transmitted its draft convention and report to the Sixth Committee, the body that dealt with legal questions in the General Assembly. The Sixth Committee also put its own stamp on the document, making both major (removing political groups and adding ethnical groups to the definition of genocide) and minor (substituting "constitutionally responsible rulers" for "heads of State") changes. The Committee presented its completed draft to the General Assembly on December 6, 1948. This is the document we know today as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

Next time we will look at some of the more interesting provision of the Convention itself.