Convention On The Prevention And Punishment Of The Crime Of Genocide Essays Examples

1. The Genocide Convention has several weaknesses. The most basic weakness is the difficulty of enforcement not only because of the limits of the definition of the crime, but also because most genocides are perpetrated by governments themselves, therefore, shifting the responsibility of going after perpetrators to outsiders. Other weaknesses are: limiting genocide to specific groups, in effect, omitting others; specification as to the number of victims to qualify the killing as genocide; the requirement of intent, which is difficult to prove; no clear-cut distinction between acts of genocide and acts of war; and lack of procedural guidelines in trying the crime (Wesheit 2014). Obviously, many of these of problems can be solved by amending or supplementing the Convention to specify certain terms and add more provisions to make the Convention easier to implement. For example, acts of genocide and acts of war must be clearly distinguished so that the existence of war cannot be exploited to kill groups of people or used dislike for certain groups to stir public emotions (Wesheit 2014).
2. If it is difficult to foresee genocide from taking place, what good would creating an institutional agency do the only purpose of which is to predict genocides? I do agree that since the Convention is not only for the punishment, but also for the prevention of the crime of genocide, there must be a mechanism for such prevention. However, without an actual genocide taking place it would be hard for the UN to impose itself on governments because it would be infringing on their sovereignty. Even if genocide can be anticipated, but not yet occurring, it is a doubt that the UN or other states can enter a sovereign country and conduct policing without violating basic international law on state sovereignty. Unlike domestic policing where local law enforcers can be tasked to patrol critical areas to prevent crimes from happening, international policing requires that an international crime must take place first. The only mechanism that can be resorted to is diplomacy or other measures that can be done outside the country’s jurisdiction.

References

Weisheit, R. (2014). War Crimes: International Response to Genocide. In Kethineni, S. (ed.), Comparative and International Policing, Justice and Transnational Crime. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.